Ina Garten-Inspired Chicken Noodle Soup

Compiled by Igor Kukolj, Editor. Nobody here has cooked this — how these are made.

Cloudy, slightly greasy chicken soup is not a matter of skimming harder. It is a matter of temperature.

At a rolling boil, the agitation breaks fat into tiny droplets and drives proteins into suspension — the stock emulsifies, and once it has, no amount of skimming will clear it. Held at a bare simmer, where the surface barely moves and bubbles rise occasionally at the edge, the fat stays as a layer on top where you can lift it off and the proteins coagulate into scum you can skim.

Bring it up to the boil once, then turn it down until it is barely moving, and leave it there.

Roast the bones first if you want colour

A stock made from raw chicken is pale and delicate. Roasted first, at 220°C until properly browned, it is deeper, darker and rounder. Neither is wrong; they are two different soups, and most people expecting a golden chicken soup are expecting the roasted one.

Noodles are cooked separately, always

Pasta in the pot absorbs stock while it cooks and keeps absorbing it in the fridge. Yesterday's leftover soup becomes noodles in damp sludge. Boil them apart, keep them apart, and put them in the bowl before the soup goes over.

Start it in cold water

Cold water lets the proteins leach out slowly and coagulate into scum you can lift off the top. Chicken dropped into already-hot water seizes, traps them inside, and the stock is both cloudier and less flavoursome.

Storing

Five days refrigerated, six months frozen, always without the noodles. It will set to a jelly when cold — that is gelatin from the bones and it is the sign of a good stock.