Udon Chicken Soup

Do you ever find yourself standing in the kitchen staring at your spice cupboard facing an urge to wildly experiment with flavor combinations just for the heck of it? No? Okay, well maybe I need to get out more! Last week I found myself with a chicken carcass leftover from the delicious Glazed Chicken with Porcini and a craving for soup. But in keeping with my bad case of spring fever, regular chicken soup sounded dull and boring. Hmph. So I went with my urge to experiment and just started pulling out spices left and right. Green cardamom pods, Chinese pink Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, cilantro, bay leaves- they all landed on the counter. When the ransacking was over I surveyed my mess and decided that this would be no ordinary chicken soup!

Making Phoo-D's Spring Fever Chicken Stock

Making the Stock

Making the Udon Chicken Soup

Making the Soup

Indeed it was far from ordinary (and I think I got lucky). The resulting soup was fragrant, complex, and really delicious. I loved the contrast of silky udon noodles with curly woodear mushrooms and thin rounds of carrot. The bright note of lime juice carried the chicken broth to new heights and made for an excellent dinner of scooping noodles while happily slurping the broth.

Udon Chicken Soup

In the spirit of having fun experimenting with spices we’re having our first blog giveaway! You may have noticed that I use a lot of Penzey’s spices. (I think I may have a slight addiction!) Since discovering Penzey’s my fun with spices has increased exponentially. So I’m going to give away a $25 gift certificate to Penzey’s that can be used by the lucky winner online or in a Penzey’s store.

To enter the giveaway simply leave a comment below naming the most “exotic” spice in your cupboard and how you use it. I will use a random number generator to select the winner on Wednesday, March 25th. Good luck!

P.S. Penzey’s has never heard of me, and the gift certificate is coming out of my pocket just because I want to share my spice love with you!


Phoo-D’s Spring Fever Chicken Stock
Makes approximately 10 cups of stock

Ingredients:
1 large chicken carcass, stripped of most edible meat
1/2 yellow onion
5 stalks celery, broken in half
3 carrots, broken in half
3 cloves garlic, sliced
2 pieces of star anise
1 Tablespoon pink Szechuan peppercorns
1 Bay leaf
5 green cardamom pods*
1/4 cup cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
10+ cups water

Directions:
Carefully pick up the chicken carcass and break the bones in several places. (This will help create a silky stock with a pleasant viscous consistency.) Place all ingredients into a large stockpot. Make sure that enough water is added to cover the chicken pieces and vegetables by approximately 3-4 inches. Turn heat on to medium, and bring the liquid to a brisk simmer. Reduce heat and partially cover the pot, maintaining a very slow simmer. Do not let the broth boil as this will cloud the broth. Simmer on low for at least 3 hours. Strain broth through a colander into a large bowl. Discard contents of colander. Rinse out the pot, and strain broth through a fine mesh sieve back into the pot. Rinse out the bowl, and strain broth one last time back into the bowl. Now you will have a beautiful clear broth that can be frozen for future use or used immediately to make Udon Chicken soup.

*I didn’t know until after making the soup that these typically are crushed before using so I just threw them in. I think crushing would make the flavor a lot stronger. If you want to do that I would only use one or two pods. Otherwise 5 provided a nice subtle flavor un-crushed.

Udon Chicken Soup
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:
1/2 t toasted sesame oil
1 t grapeseed oil (or peanut oil)
1 oz dried woodear mushrooms, reconstituted* and thinly sliced
1/2 cup green onions
4 cloves garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
1/2 cup thinly sliced carrots
1 large cooked chicken breast, cubed (about 1 1/2 cups)
10 cups Phoo-D Chicken Stock
2 1/2 Tablespoons Kosher Salt
8 oz fine udon noodles, cooked and drained
1 lime, juiced

Directions:
Place grapeseed and sesame oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. When oil begins to shimmer, add in garlic and ginger. Stir for 30 seconds to flavor the oil. Immediately add in onions, carrots, and mushrooms. Stir well to move garlic and ginger from the bottom of the pot and incorporate it with the vegetables. Saute vegetables over medium-low heat until they begin to soften, about 5-8 minutes. Next add chicken, stock, reserved mushroom liquid, and kosher salt. Stir and partially cover the pot with a lid. Simmer gently for 15 minutes. While soup is simmering, in a separate pot cook udon noodles according to the package instructions, until they are just al dente. Drain udon noodles and then add them to the soup. Stir well to un-clump the noodles. Turn off heat and add lime juice along with salt and pepper to taste. Serve in individual bowls along with a fork or chopsticks to help eat the noodles.

*Place dried mushrooms in a medium bowl, and pour boiling hot water over the top until they are covered completely. Set aside for 20 minutes to reconstitute. Drain mushrooms, reserving liquid. Thinly slice mushrooms.

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