Ingredients:
2 pounds (905 grams) boneless, skinless chicken thighs
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3-inch piece ginger, peeled, finely chopped
1 bundle (6 to 8 ounces, 170 to 225 grams) scallions, thinly sliced, whites and greens separated
4 teaspoons(11grams) kosher salt
Freshly ground white or black pepper
10 cups (2.4 kilograms) water
8 ounces (225 grams) dried curly (in a brick) or other dried ramen-style noodles
1 cup (135 grams) sliced carrot, cut into thin matchsticks (about 1/2 full-sized carrot)
finish:
1/4 cup (60 grams) black rice vinegar (see note)
1/4 cup (60 grams) soy sauce
2 tablespoons (25 grams) toasted sesame oil
crispy chili oil to taste
On a cold winter weekend day when nobody wants to go outside, there are few better things than a pot of chicken noodle soup, quietly sim-
mering on the stove while my family, in all likelihood, is glued to another
Star Wars marathon. But on a cold winter weekend day when nobody
wants to go outside but we also don't want to spend the afternoon long-
cooking a pot of bone broth? This, this is the soup we make.
One of my favorite discoveries of the last few years was that I didn't
actually need to make, to buy, or even to build-from-bouillon chicken
stock to make chicken noodle soup. It turns out that just simmering
boneless, skinless chicken thighs with aromatics in salted water creates
a gentle but delicious soup-building base. With ginger, garlic, scallions,
and a punchy seasoning added at the end, all efforts to explain calmly
how much I love this soup fall short. This is the first recipe I worked on for
this book, and, for us, the very definition of a keeper. A deeply flavored
chicken noodle soup you can make in 45 minutes is one we're going to
want to make as often as possible.
A few things here are key: Chicken thigh cutlets have more fat than
breast cutlets, and the richness helps build a more flavorful soup here.
Adding the soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil at the end as a salty, robust
finish, versus cooking them into the broth, keeps them from getting lost
in the soup. This gives it a bit of a hot-and-sour-soup note, too, which is
also finished with vinegar.
Bring the chicken, garlic, ginger, scallion whites (reserve greens), salt, pepper, and water to a boil in a 4-to-5-quart pot. Reduce the heat to medium-
low, and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is very
tender and cooked through, about 15 minutes.
While the soup simmers, whisk together the vinegar, soy sauce, and
sesame oil in a bowl, and add as much or as little chili crisp as your
heart desires. (Mine desires a lot, but, to keep the less spice-inclined
kids happy, we use just a smidge and add more to our bowls at the table.)
Remove the chicken with tongs, and transfer it to a cutting board. Add the noodles and carrot to the broth, following the cooking-time estimate on your noodles' package directions. Use two forks to shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Once the noodles are done, return the chicken to the pot, and rewarm for 1 minute. Taste, adjusting seasoning if needed.
Divide the soup between bowls. Add a handful of scallion greens, and drizzle each bowl with 1 tablespoon of the soy-sauce mixture, adding more to taste.
Notes:
Deeper in color and flavor, black vinegar (also sold as black rice vinegar and Chinkiang vinegar) should be very easy to find in an Asian grocery store or online, and I love it here for flavor and color. Should you seek it out, you can also use it for the Soy-Glazed Tofu with Crisped Rice (page 129), which helps give it that dark glaze.
Cook the noodles in the soup right before you want to serve it, or they will keep "drinking" the broth until there's little left.