Mom’s Chicken Noodle Soup: Ultimate Comfort Food

Mom’s Chicken Noodle Soup
was always the ultimate comfort food.
The words themselves conjure as many feelings
as the taste memories.

 

Over Christmas vacation, my cousin posted a video of herself making noodles.

And it brought back all the feels.

When I saw her hands slicing the roll of dough,

fingers sifting through the floury strings,

then shaking the excess flour off with a sieve,

I knew I had to share the memories of my mom’s Chicken Noodle Soup.

 

 

Mom’s Chicken Noodle Soup: The Memories

Preparing the Chicken

Warning: Skip this section if you don’t like graphic details.

My memories go all the way back to watching Dad catch the birds and, um, take all the steps to butcher them.

I realize we still eat dead chickens.

But I prefer not to think about how they get that way.

Then came the part where mom dunked those limp feathered carcasses.

She held them by the feet so she didn’t burn her hands, because the water was boiling. (The smell was totally unnerving.) But that was the pioneer way to simplify plucking the feathers. The hot water loosened them, besides purifying everything. I didn’t realize it then, but the boiling water likely saved us from food poisoning.

Next she lined up the plucked chickens on a butcher paper covered table, and sharpened her knives.

There is a system to cleaning a chicken, and cutting it into the recognizable pieces: drumsticks, wings, breasts, thighs, etc. I remember she always left the wishbone attached to a breast piece for one lucky person.

But if she butchered for chicken soup, she didn’t cut it up. After it was thoroughly cleaned and re-scalded in clean water, she put it whole into the soup pot. She de-boned it after it was cooked and the smell of chicken broth permeated the whole house.

 

 

Making the Noodles

While the chicken was boiling in the pot,

Mom mixed the noodle dough.

Ever wonder why pioneer women had Rosie the Riveter arms?

Mixing noodle dough was one reason. She worked as much flour in as she could and still roll it out.

Although the rolling made her wipe her brow, too. But she always wore an apron, so that’s what the hem was for. The part that wasn’t covered with flour was used to wipe her face.

 

 

How to cut noodles the way my mom did:

Sprinkle the table liberally with flour. Dump the dough into the flour, and sprinkle with more flour. Roll into a circle as thin as a dime and as big around as a tractor wheel. Or the size of the table, whichever comes first.

Sprinkle with flour again, covering every inch of dough with white powder. Roll up into a very tight cinnamon roll circle. Without the cinnamon and sugar, or course. Her dough roll would snake all around the table, it was so long.

Now she sharpened her knife again, then sliced the dough roll as thin as possible and still be noodles. When she had a little pile cut, she picked it up and shook it around with her fingers, taking all the noodles apart, and re-coating them with more flour. They could not stick together, and the flour was the secret.

When she had enough noodles cut for a pot of boiling water, she shook as much flour off as possible, then dropped small handfuls of noodles into the boiling water. She dribbled them, stirring as she dropped, so as to keep them separate. They were cooked almost as fast as she got the pot full of noodles. So it wasn’t unusual for the water to boil over before she could get it off the element. Flour really makes boiling water bubble up.

She had a huge colander waiting in the sink, and, carrying the steaming pot at arms length, she’d rest it on the edge of the sink, then slowly tip it over the colander.

 

Mom’s Noodle Recipe

There’s a great Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup recipe on this website,

It’s very much like my mom (and grandma) made hers, so we’ll share her noodle recipe only.

(Another family favorite noodle dish was Fried Noodles with Bacon and Onion. So noodles weren’t only made for soup.)

What are some family food traditions you still re-enact for nostalgia as much as for taste?