- It's hard when you have
a friend behind the camera
'cause you're just like,
I'm like chattin' with you.
[upbeat music]
Today I'm making classic
chicken noodle soup.
This is a whole chicken noodle soup,
meaning we're gonna throw this entire bird
into the pot and we are going to
remove different parts of the bird
as they finish cooking
so that none of the meat
is dry and overcooked by the end of it.
So that's what makes this recipe special.
And the key to a really delicious
full flavored chicken noodle
soup, is obviously the broth.
So we're gonna spend a lot of time
and care working on the broth.
To begin, always seasoning
the chicken before it goes in.
I'm gonna season this pretty
heavily, as you can imagine.
And just give it a couple of minutes
to let the salt sort of penetrate
and soak into the chicken.
So that the meat itself
is actually seasoned
and not just the broth.
We'll set that aside.
[sets tray down]
Momencito.
[water running]
Oops I just got soap on your camera.
So while the chicken
sits for a few minutes,
and you could do that up
to 24 hours in advance,
so actually be an
awesome move on your part
I just didn't do that.
I'm gonna cut up the aromatics
that go into this broth.
So it's two whole onions,
and you will notice
that I'm leaving the skins on.
You don't have to if
you're skeeved out by it.
However the golden hue of the skins
is actually gonna impart a
golden color to the broth.
And that's gonna signify like
delicious chickeny flavor.
So I recommend you leave them on.
Two carrots, you can peel
them if they're nasty,
but these are nice.
I'm just gonna chop off the ends.
And just a super rough chop on these.
[chopping]
To expose some more of their surface area,
so that it flavors the soup.
[drops carrots into pot]
Two celery sticks, also roughly chopped.
[chopping]
Goin' in.
And then I have one tablespoon
of whole black peppercorns.
They will ultimately get
strained out of the broth
so it doesn't matter that
they're whole and not cracked.
And then two heads of garlic,
which I'm splitting crosswise in half
to keep them relatively in tact.
[chopping]
But to expose their flavor.
And those go in skins and all.
Again, it's getting strained out.
[chopping]
No big deal.
All right, and then a couple
of sprigs of fresh dill.
We're gonna add dill at the end
for like a little fresh vibrant moment,
but you can also add it to the broth
to impart some of it's flavor.
So the chicken's going into the pot,
nestled on top of everything.
And I'm gonna add 14 cups of water.
So you want basically just enough water
to barely cover the chicken,
so that it's all submerged.
But not so much that the
broth is weak and unflavorful.
[pouring water]
Okay so we're going over to the stove
and I'm gonna bring this to a boil.
Which'll take probably 10 or 15 minutes.
And then we're just, we keep on waiting.
Until the chicken breast registers 155.
At which point we will
take the chicken out
and rest it until it's
cool enough to handle.
And then we'll put the chicken back in,
and then we'll take it out again.
It's a whole thing.
That's all for now.
So, the internal temperature
of the chicken is 155,
of the breast, at the thickest part.
So I'm gonna turn this off momentarily
and bring it back over.
And,
now,
we.
[grabs tongs]
Are going to lift this chicken up.
Okay, so one way to do it is to kinda
stick your tongs like
right into the cavity
and then tilt it to let some of that broth
drip back into the pot.
And you can always use
another like heavy spoon
to kinda help lift.
Just let it drain for a sec,
and then on to your cutting board.
And we will let this rest here
until it's cool enough to handle.
Like five or 10?
[settings tongs down]
So, we are going to break
this chicken down now.
Which is a lot easier than it seems,
if you know where all of the kind of
like joint parts are in the chicken
that make it easy to kinda
separate it all apart.
So let's just go over the anatomy here.
We are breast side up, so
here are the two breasts.
Here are the two wings.
And then here are the two legs
which is thigh plus drumstick.
So, breast meat is white meat
which means that it has
the tendency to dry out.
Which is why we're going to remove it
from the carcass now and
leave it off to the side.
We'll shred it, and we'll
add it back into the soup
later on because we don't want it to cook
any further than it already has.
On the other hand, the legs and the wings
are dark meat, they can
handle a little bit more time.
Actually they'll benefit from it.
They'll get really nice,
and breezy, and tender,
and the stock will
continue to build flavor
while they're in it.
So, we're gonna pull this
wing out from the breast.
And then take a knife and just make a cut
right in between the joint.
Oops.
And it comes apart.
So making incisions right
where the breast and legs meet.
Come down the side here.
And then you can use your hand
to kinda pop this outta the socket,
which is kinda gross but it's fine.
[popping]
You pop that joint out,
and it will actually just
come off by tearing it.
Now we take off the breast meat.
There's a breast bone that
runs right down the middle
of the chicken and you're
gonna use your knife
to sort of carve away the flesh
from both sides of that bone,
so leaving the bone behind.
So, first one, just a little to the left
of that breast plate.
I'm making a cut down.
And then I'm following the
contour of the carcass,
so angling my knife a bit
to carve the meat off.
[cutting]
So there's one breast.
And then I like to actually flip it around
'cause I find it easier to sort of
carve off this way
because I'm right handed.
So now, on the other side of the breast.
[cutting]
Making a cut down, and then carving it off
and away from the carcass.
Okay, so two legs, two breasts, two wings,
and the rest of the carcass.
So the carcass is going back in.
There's tons of flavor in the bones,
lots of gelatin, there's
meat still left on there.
That has a lot to give still.
We're gonna put the wings
also back into the pot.
We're going to take the
skin right off of these legs
because as it cooks it'll render,
and there will be a lot
fat in it otherwise.
If you want a clear broth
you need to take it off.
And the legs go back in.
And we go back over to the stove
and bring this back up to a simmer.
[setting pot down]
[turning oven on]
Kay, this is gonna simmer for 40 minutes,
until the leg meat is impossibly tender,
so just give it time.
So, what's left here are
our two chicken breasts.
I'm gonna discard the skin.
And then you can use forks to shred
or I actually just prefer
to do it with my hands.
And just shred the meat into
little bite size pieces.
Okay, set that aside and we're
gonna chop the vegetables
but first let's clean
off our cutting board.
[setting board in sink]
[water running]
Oh, what do you know
there's new dish soap here.
method.
Gaby.
- [Gaby] Yeah?
- What's with the new dish soap?
- We're trying it out I hope you like it.
- [Molly] I like it.
[scrubbing]
- It's auditioning.
Just the first time, I
think we're gonna love it.
- [Molly] Does everyone get it?
- We will, hope.
- Just you so far.
- [Gaby] Smells good, right?
- Smells good.
Smells like basil.
It actually smells like
basil, like real basil
as opposed to like fake basil.
- [Gaby] I like the bottle.
- Yeah it's pretty.
- [Gaby] Fancy.
- J'approve.
[setting board down]
So, now onto the remaining veg.
We have carrots and celery in the broth,
but we also are gonna bring them back
into the picture later
on for fresh vegetables
that are just tender and cooked through.
I am gonna peel the carrots for this one,
'cause they'll look nicer,
they're kind of like
presentation carrots if you will.
Dunno if you know anything about those.
And we'll just cut these into thin coins.
Very retro.
And then likewise for the celery,
lobbing off the kinda gross end.
So, breast is shredded, veg is sliced.
Now we're just waiting
for the chicken legs
to finish braising which'll
be another 15 minutes or so.
And then we'll pull that apart,
and strain the stock and then lastly,
and this is the best part.
We'll dump in the ditalini,
and cook the pasta right in the broth
which is nice 'cause it's
all happening in one pot.
You don't have to bring
pasta water to a boil.
We'll talk about that later.
Let's go check on the soup.
[people talking in background]
I am going to grab these
tongs and take a look,
but at this point you
can see that the broth
is a very beautiful color.
Kay, so golden hue.
Thanks in part to the
skins of the yellow onions,
and the amount of time that this broth's
been in contact with all of that chicken,
all of the bones, the carcass.
It's a beautiful thing.
So, I'm gonna fish around for the legs.
And just take a little piece and see
if it shreds right off which it does.
Which means it's tender,
and we're good to go.
So, let's come back over here for a mome'.
Okay, now I'm fishing out these legs.
So there's two of them.
Gonna let those cool for a minute
and in the mean time I'm
gonna strain out the broth.
All right, so now that
all of the vegetables
and the bones have given everything
that they possibly can to this broth,
we're gonna strain it all
out and into a fresh pot.
And we're gonna discard all of this now.
Because it's really pretty
lifeless at this point.
But we used it for all that it's worth.
Let's throw this back on the heat
and we'll bring it up to a boil,
and we'll cook our ditalini in there.
[turning on stove]
So now we shred the meat,
the very very tender leg meat.
Which comes off very
easily with your hands.
And shred that into the bowl
with the chicken breast.
So tender.
Okay, so here's all of our
meat that's gonna go back in.
Wash my hands one more time.
[water running]
With my basil soap.
- [Gaby] Andy I love you.
- I love you Andy.
[water running]
[people talking in background]
[sniffing]
Actually does smell exactly like basil.
I dunno if you guys smelled
it, smells like summer.
Okay, I'm chopping dill
which I'm gonna stir in
a little bit later on.
There's kind of a lot
of dill in this soup,
and that is because I
love dill, very simply.
And I think that dill
in chicken noodle soup
is one of life's greatest pleasures.
However, if you don't like dill,
you don't need to put the dill in.
You could either leave it out,
or you could use parsley instead.
Or chives.
Cilantro I guess if you wanna go that way.
It's not essential but I think it's nice.
Let's go drop in our ditalini.
The nice thing about ditalini,
is that is cooks very quickly
and so you can actually
just cook it right into the pot of broth
as opposed to adding it to
a whole 'nother pot of boiling water.
If you were to use a larger pasta,
like an egg noodle,
or a penne,
or a fusilli or something else,
you would probably wanna
cook that separately
just because there'd so much starch
and it would take so long to cook.
That by the time it was cooked,
your broth would be
reduced and it would kinda
throw the whole thing off.
I engineered this recipe such that
you don't have to do any of that,
as long as you use a small pasta.
So use ditalini, you could use orzo,
you could use the abc pasta.
Something small, macaroni would be fine.
The stock has just come to a boil,
so I'm stirring in six ounces.
It's not a full box, 'cause
this isn't the main event.
Just gonna give it a little bit of body.
We're gonna cook this half way,
so for about four minutes.
Before stirring in all of the vegetables
and the meat that we just picked.
There's a little bit of foam here,
so I'm gonna start skimming again.
[grabbing spoon]
Always be skimmin'.
What are the other small
pastas of the world?
- [Producer] That's really your area
of expertise I feel like.
- That's true.
All right here we go, back
in with all of the meat.
And then adding the fresh veggies.
And then we'll just let this cook
another three or four minutes,
until the ditalini is cooked.
And the celery and carrots are tender.
Just taste one more.
[speaking in foreign language]
[setting spoon down]
All right, that was easy, let's go.
Back we go.
Because we haven't really
paid much attention
to seasoning yet here, although we did
pretty aggressively season the chicken.
But this is your moment to adjust
the seasoning of the broth.
[sipping broth]
[smacking lips]
Did you guys season the broth?
Just for good measure,
not that it needs it.
And then I'm a big fan
of lot's of black pepper
in my chicken noodle soup.
And, there goes all the dill.
You want the dill to be
nice, and bright, and fresh.
So adding it sort of at the last minute.
You could also just throw it out
on the table and have
people add it as they eat.
Okay, let's dish it up.
Making sure to get lots of
all the goodness in every one.
Find some of my beautiful little celeries.
My sweet, sweet celery.
And then some pretty dill
for garnish, some sprigs.
And then more black pep.
That's all she wrote.
I think what we've learned today
and what makes this chicken soup
better than all the other ones,
is that we spent a lot
of time on the broth.
So that's hugely important
in the deliciousness factor of the soup.
And we took a lot of care in being sure
that the chicken breast
didn't get overcooked,
which is the bane of my existence.
Is overcooked chicken breast
in chicken noodle soup.
So now we have perfectly cooked chicken,
very flavorful broth, tender chicken legs,
just cooked through little
slivers of carrot and celery,
lot's of dill, black pepper.
And my cute little ditaline's.
[slurping]
- [Producer] And you're taking this home?
- I'm actually going home now.
I'm actually leaving now,
so goodbye and good luck.
I'm taking all this with me.
I'm gonna go eat this in bed.
But you can't come there.
I can get rid of this now.
- [Producer] Yeah.
[dropping things in sink]
- That was graceful.
