Do as I say, Not as I do - Chicken Noodle Soup

If a Winnipeg girl tells you it's cold outside, it's bloody cold outside. Although she'll start muttering about Winnipeg being a dry cold and at least it's sunny all the time. And not only was it cold, but it was a tough day too, with the realities of being a grown up feeling at times agonizing and insurmountable. So naturally, when I saw Smitten Kitchen's recipe for her 'Ultimate Chicken Noodle Soup' I needed to eat it. Today.

Before I tell you about it, I wanted to talk quickly about my goal in writing here. In the long term, I'd like to talk about food in the grander scheme of things, including food policy, food security, and books. But right now, I just want to tell you about what I'm cooking, and how to make it work in your kitchen. I'll always use other people's recipes, so think of me as a recipe tester, making stupid mistakes and testing products and appliances so you don't have to. I'll only tell you about things that are delicious and worth recreating yourself, and hopefully tell you how to make it easier.

Back to the soup. I had planned to get it started earlier, but a last minute lunch with a friend had me at the grocery store at 3pm. Our local butcher had no chicken backs, necks, or other bones. Deb (of smittenkitchen.com) says you can use 4 lbs of chicken wings instead, but that's a lot of wings and, well, I chickened out and bought half as much. Which was dumb, because chicken wings are really not that expensive. At that point, I should have abandoned the project until I had time to go to St. Lawrence Market for the proper carcass bits, but like I said, I needed this soup today. In the end, it was truly delicious and exactly as soul fulfilling as hoped, but not without pitfalls along the way.

My notes:
-If you can't get backs/necks and don't have carcasses in your freezer (as Nigella says you should), just buy the chicken wings. In bulk they aren't that expensive and the flavour is well worth it.
-I've decided that I'd rather spend a bit more money not to waste food, and as a result I've started buying carrots and celery in bulk (which is to say, individually) as needed. Three large carrots and three celery stalks cost me $2, but there's no extras moldering in my crisper drawer.
-Speaking of moldering, how many tiny cans of tomato paste have you bought, used a tbsp of, and thrown away? Buy tomato paste in tubes, my friends. It lasts longer and is only marginally more expensive.
-Three leeks cost me $4.49. They come in bunches and I only needed one. If you have no further leek needs, consider skipping them and use shallots or onions instead.
-Unless you're planning on leaving the broth in the slow-cooker all day, don't bother. I tried her slow-cooker method and it just can't get the temperature up as quickly as you want for satisfying results. I ended up moving it to the stock pot early and it was a pain. I wish I'd started it there. We would also have eaten two hours earlier.
-I accidentally only bought two chicken breasts instead of three. It was plenty of meat.
-Be conservative on how much noodle you use in direct correlation to how much broth you end up with. I cooked my broth down pretty aggressively to get the flavour I wanted, but the requisite amount of noodles ended up sucking all of the broth up. Delicious, yes. Soup, not so much. 
-Unless you have another immediate need for parsley, don't bother buying it. It'll just melt into a puddle of green mush in your fridge.
-Build some time for the soup to cool into your timeline, otherwise there's going to be a lot of burnt tongues.

Seriously though, this is a gorgeous recipe and well worth making. My pot of soup actually looked like the pictures and tasted like a dream.

Begin as you mean to proceed

I finished my MBA on December 5th, but between job interviews, a three week trip to Winnipeg, and another trip to Pennsylvania, today was the first day of the rest of my life. I don't have a job (yet) and  we are being forced out of our apartment by our landlords, so I have no idea where I'll be in two months. I'm trying to treat job hunting like a job that involves me sitting at the computer from 9-5 but, well, we've still got to eat. And on zero salaries right now, we have to be a little bit bit frugal (this is not in my nature).

For dinner last night, we had Pinch of Yum's Hoisin Pork with Noodles. I'd made it once before, and it was a big hit, and somehow seemed ideal for a cold night after a long day of trying to get myself organized.

A couple of notes:
-She says the prep time is 15 minutes. This is a lie, as it includes an "overnight or for at least several hours" marinate. It's totally hidden in the second step and a quick glance at the recipe will miss it. That said, I marinated for 30 minutes this time and it was still delicious.
-This is a very sweet sauce, and go figure as it's got 2 tbsps of honey, 1 tbsp of sugar, and 3 tbsps of hoisin sauce. I think you could easily cut those quantities in half if they make you nervous.
-I skipped both the hot pepper and the peanut butter. Still delicious.
-My grocery store is inconsistent in their sliced pork selection, so this time I got 'Pork Loin Rib Chops Boneless' at $13.21/kg. It worked out to about $7 of pork, which I sliced myself.
-I think the amount of leftover sauce after marinating will depend on how long you marinate, that said, both times I've had lots extra. We're sauce people, so a quick internet search revealed if you bring your marinade to a boil for a few minutes, you'll be good to use it as a sauce.
-Test your rice noodles before you drain them. I'm paranoid about overcooked noodles, but rice noodles seem to take longer than advertised.
-I think cucumber and bean sprouts would also be great veggies to add here.

Useful kitchen appliances:
-For mincing garlic and ginger, I rely on my Chopper Grinder. It's small, efficient, and easy to clean after use.
-You can live without a food processor, truly, particularly if you have a Chopper Grinder, but this Cuisinart Food Processor makes tasks like grating carrots super quick (and you're far less likely to grate a finger).

Addicted to Noodles

We (I) cook a lot here Chez RosenBum, as you know. We've got some favourites that pop up a couple of times a month, but we also like to experiment with new recipes. What often happens with new recipes is that I read about a food, or try something in a restaurant, and get obsessed with replicating it.

A couple of weeks back, I started reading a blog that reviews restaurants (mostly Asian) in Southern California. Random, I know. Anyways, one of the dishes mentioned was dan dan/dandan noodles, and I needed to eat them. After an afternoon spent trying to find restaurants in Toronto that serve them (not our Hakka place, sadly), I moved on to trying to find a recipe. Having never actually eaten them before, I was basing my recipe requirements on what sounded tasty and do-able at home. I ended up discovering that America's Test Kitchen had a recipe, but of course ATK won't let you access their recipes without a membership. I have no issue with paying for content, and had been contemplating an ATK membership, but I wanted these noodles NOW. Luckily, someone has (probably illegally) posted the recipe on Food.com, and it can be found here.

We're lucky that we live in a neighbourhood with a huge Chinese population, thus our No Frills has lots of speciality ingredients that might be hard to find elsewhere. Over the years we've amassed a pretty broad collection of Asian sauces, so I didn't have to buy anything extra for those, but I did really want fresh noodles. Fortunately, No Frills had options, and I opted for the thing that looked tastiest. The recipe calls for chinese rice wine or dry sherry, but I just used the Harvey's Bristol Cream I had on the bar cart. Otherwise, it's a really simple recipe that came together in less than 30 minutes.

And it's DELICIOUS. Everything I ever wanted in a noodle dish. I had a huge bowl and was beyond jealous that David got to eat the leftovers.

Now this was on Saturday. Last night, I needed to make dinner, and all I could think about was dan dan noodles, so I made them again. This is the first time that I have ever made a recipe twice in one week. I was shopping at our IGA instead of No Frills, so used fresh linguine instead of Chinese noodles. I also used the full amount of chicken broth (I only used 1 cup on Saturday) and it made for a saucier sauce. I think I liked it better that way.

What was the last thing that you made that was so delicious you immediately needed to make it again?