Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup

Name: Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 2 h
Cuisine: Chinese cuisine
Ingredients: Chicken (whole) 1; Water 6 cups (1.2 l); Chinese noodles 80 g; Carrot 1; Onion 1; Celery root 1 piece; Ginger root 1 piece; Green onion 5-6; Cilantro 0.5 bunch; Garlic 1 head; Egg 1; Soy sauce, rice vinegar, dried hot chili, star anise, wu xiang mian blend, Sichuan pepper to taste

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2 h

I have always loved homemade chicken soup with noodles or vermicelli. Even back when noodles came in an awful cardboard pack and turned to mush in the pot, the tasty homemade chicken made up for it. We didn’t make chicken noodle soup often. Backyard hens were usually kept until autumn, or for when a relative fell ill. The noodles, though, we made all the time, because they were always at hand. If you fried them in butter after boiling, they were even delicious.

Chicken noodle soup is most often found in Asia, where the recipes are very varied and have been brought to perfection. Chinese noodle soups, made with vegetable or chicken broth, for example, have spread all over the world. It is amazing how many different versions there are. If you walk the streets of Shanghai at lunchtime, you will never find two identical soups.

What we are used to is chicken noodle soup, cooked with a mass of vegetables that stays in the soup when served. Chinese chicken noodle soup is usually made a little differently. The chicken is simmered for a good while with vegetables, then the noodles are finished in that broth, and the vegetables are not served. Also, the soup is served with plenty of fresh herbs, often with an egg, and with large pieces of chicken, bones included.

Noodles are a constant in many Asian dishes: long, narrow strips of dried dough, varied in ingredients and method. In Italy long pasta is very common and is made from durum wheat flour. Essentially, fettuccine with mushrooms or tagliatelle with seafood is the same noodles with seafood and tasty additions and sauces.

Chicken noodle soup is easy to make, and almost any noodles will do: wheat, rice, starch and so on. Eggs are often added to the dough, along with other grains and, unfortunately, some not very healthy additives that improve the look of the noodles but lower their quality.

Chinese chicken noodle soup is a tasty and nourishing first course. The broth is made with spices and vegetables. The vegetables usually don’t make it into the finished soup. Only the broth is left, the noodles are cooked in it, and at serving the soup is seasoned with rice vinegar and soy sauce, extra spices, and generously sprinkled with cilantro. Despite being a bit unusual, chicken noodle soup made on Chinese principles was a big hit with us.

12 ingredientsTo the recipe

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Ingredients

2 servings

Chicken (whole) 1
Water 6 cups
(1.2 l)
Chinese noodles 80 g
Carrot 1
Onion 1
Celery root 1 piece
Ginger root 1 piece
Green onion 5-6
Cilantro 0.5 bunch
Garlic 1 head
Egg 1
Soy sauce, rice vinegar, dried hot chili, star anise, wu xiang mian blend, Sichuan pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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We will make the chicken noodle soup from a whole chicken, not from parts or a “soup pack”. If you can, buy a free-range chicken. A store-bought one is fine too, but choose a small hen rather than a broiler, weighing 1.2-1.3 kg. Ideally the chicken has never been frozen.
You can make the broth with no vegetables at all, using just the chicken. But a rich chicken broth with vegetables is much tastier. So let’s prepare the usual soup vegetables: a carrot, an onion, a piece of celery root, and, if you like, parsnip and parsley root.
Good-quality Chinese noodles are sold in any large supermarket. There is usually a translation sticker on the pack, so you can find your way. Which noodles to choose is up to you. We went with Chinese wheat noodles. By the way, a suitable Italian pasta works perfectly well.
Wash the chicken, remove any fat and feathers. It won’t hurt to remove leftover innards, which often stay in the carcass. Take off all the skin. We rarely cook the skin in broth. Chop the chicken into 4-6 pieces and put them in a pot. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.
Rinse the chicken pieces under running water to wash off the remaining foam, and pour out the liquid from the pot. Cover the chicken again with 6 cups of water (1.2 l). Put the pot on the heat. Peel the onion, carrot, a piece of celery root and the ginger. Cut the vegetables into large pieces and add them to the soup. Add a whole unpeeled head of garlic.
Put 1-2 dried hot chili pods, one star anise, 5-6 Sichuan peppercorns and 0.5 tsp of wu xiang mian blend into a piece of clean cloth, preferably nylon. If you like, add 1-2 allspice berries and a clove, which will make the chicken noodle soup more aromatic. Tie the cloth into a knot or wrap it with thread. Drop the spices into the pot and simmer the broth over low heat for about 1.5 hours.
The broth must not boil hard, only barely simmer, and then the soup will be clear. About 45 mins after you start cooking the chicken, take out the spice bag, since it has already done its job of flavoring the broth. When the broth has cooked for the full time, move the chicken pieces to a plate to cool a little. You can eat the vegetables or throw them away. Strain the broth.
Next, before cooking the Chinese noodles, season the broth. It was a little surprising that the Chinese add acid to soup, but we decided not to change anything and added 1 tbsp of rice vinegar. Then we tasted it and added more, and it was delicious. No salt goes into this chicken noodle soup, only natural soy sauce. 1-2 tbsp of soy sauce is enough to make the soup wonderfully tasty, with the usual level of saltiness.
Bring the seasoned broth to a boil, then reduce the heat so it barely simmers. Put the chosen Chinese noodles into the boiling broth so they are fully submerged. Stirring gently, cook the noodles in the broth until done. Chinese wheat noodles usually take 4-6 mins, which is enough.
While the noodles cook, cut the boiled chicken into large pieces and arrange it in big deep bowls. By the way, you can cut the chicken with the bones, or take all the meat off the carcass and put that in the bowls. Cut the boiled head of garlic in half across the cloves and put one half in each bowl. Lift the cooked noodles out of the broth and divide them among the bowls.
Hard-boil the egg, peel it and cut it in half. Put half an egg in each bowl of soup. Pour the broth over the arranged ingredients. Chop the cilantro and green onion with a knife, not too finely. Sprinkle the chicken noodle soup generously with the herbs. If you like, add a pinch of ground dried hot chili, since Chinese cuisine is fairly spicy.
Chinese chicken noodle soup is served hot. The noodles and chicken are traditionally eaten with chopsticks, and then you drink the broth from a curiously curved spoon. We liked the soup a lot at home. We especially liked the principle of cooking, where the main ingredients are put in bowls and covered with broth, and also that the spices don’t float in the soup but are cooked in a bag that is easy to pull out and throw away.