This is the recipe that started this whole website. It is one of those recipes that is hard to write down or explain without visuals. So, lots of pictures to go with this one. It takes a lot of free time to make but is well worth it…just ask my kids!
Start with a whole fryer chicken. Cover it with water and a tablespoon of salt. Boil it for about an hour and a half. (Be sure and remove the neck and other “yucky stuff” that might be inside the chicken before you boil it.) After the chicken is cooked through, remove the whole chicken to a 9 x 13 pan and let it sit until it cools. Later on in the process, you will have to “de-bone” the chicken. This should really be called “de-meat” the chicken. You will have to roll your sleeves up and be willing to get a little messy as you pull all of the meat off of the chicken. But you want to make sure it is cool first. (Or you might be able to convince a friend that you are not the Little Red Hen and if they want to share this great dish with you, then they need to help you!!)
Next, you need to get out all of the ingredients to make the noodles. You will need:
- Baking Powder
- Eggs
- Flour
- Salt
- Small mixing bowl
- Large spoon
- Knife
- Fork
- Rolling Pin
- Noodle Cutter
- Cookie Sheet
Crack one egg in the small bowl and add “half an egg shell” of water. Add “some” salt (about a half a teaspoon) and a “knife tip” of baking powder. Now you see why this recipe is hard to write down or simply explain.
Scramble these ingredients up with the fork.
Add about 4 heaping large spoons of flour into the egg mixture. Stir. This is the critical part – the mixture needs to form a ball that is neither too dry nor too wet. It takes about a minute to stir in the flour. If it is still wet in some parts, add a little more flour.
Put some flour out on the counter.
Place them on a cookie sheet. Make three more batches of dough. (They need to be done individually instead of mixing all four eggs and stuff up in one batch. Sorry, but maybe that is where the love comes in!!)
After all the noodles have been made and cut, place them into the chicken broth that is slowly boiling. They will drop to the bottom of the broth but raise up pretty quickly.
Lower the heat and stir them often for about 25-30 minutes. Then turn the burner off and just let them sit. The longer they sit, the more broth they absorb. It starts out pretty “soupy” but thickens nicely.
I usually let them sit for a couple of hours. Then I add the chicken that has been cut up into bite-size pieces to the noodles.
