Have you ever had an old fashioned bowl of homemade noodle soup?  Real noodles?  Made with love by your mom or grandma or (gasp!) you??? (Recipe at bottom of post.)

It really isn’t that hard to do.  Grab the essentials and clear your countertops, ‘cuz we’re about to make a big mess up in here.    I actually took plenty of pictures to walk you through…here we go…

You need:
Eggs.  3-5 of them depending on how many noodles you want.  My family of 2 adults and 4 children always does 5 (or more).
Canola or other cooking oil. 1-2 T. We use 2 T. with the five eggs.
pinch of salt
Flour. Enough to make the right consistency. (Don’t you love it when Grandma gives you a recipe? No real details.)

That is it folks. That flour thing is really annoying. To be honest I have never measured it myself. If you get the drift of the recipe though, you can clearly see that everything is very loose and easy going. It is hard to mess this up, honest. You can either do it like Grandma does – make a pile of flour (a few cups to start – maybe 3 or so) in the center of your counter, then make a dent in the top so it looks like a little flour nest and add everything to that nest – proceed to squish and knead everything together with your bare hands and your tough arm muscles. Or you can go all modern – throw 3 cups or so of flour in your big mixer and then add the eggs, oil, and salt and turn it on.  I go with the later, because trying to scrape egg dough off your hands is not a fun way to spend an afternoon.  But it can be done if you don’t have the mixer or you want the exercise.

Mix all that up until it comes together.  It should form a dough that is not dry, but not too sticky.  If you pat it into a ball and it sticks all over your hands, you need more flour.  If it is too dry and crumbly that it won’t form a ball or you can’t work with it (like a tough playdough) without it falling apart on you, then you may need to work in a touch more oil.  Once you get it the way you like it, put it in a bowl, cover it with saran wrap and let it rest for 20 min. or so while you grab a drink or tend to your hordes of fighting children (in my case).

Once the dough has rested a bit you will need to roll it out.  This can be done by hand.  Flour your surface really well and roll it out in sheets to maybe 1/8 of an inch thick.  Flour again.  Lots of flour will be flying everywhere.  Then roll the sheet up cinnamon roll style, cut it into strips 1/2 inch or less wide and unroll the strips, keeping everything well coated with flour to prevent sticking.  You can do this by hand.  But you really don’t have to.  If you like homemade egg noodle soup, you will eventually (sooner, rather than later) be getting a machine like this…

Mine is called the pasta queen.  This is (in my humble opinion) the only way to do this.  Here is a link to a similar well-rated machine on Amazon – they no longer sell the exact one I have brand new.  If you have such a machine, you will set it up on your counter, divide your (well floured) dough ball into 4 pieces and flatten slightly with your hand, set your machine on the thickest setting on the dough roller end (mine starts at “7”), and feed it through the machine.

Once it has gone through once, it will be a bit lumpy and bumpy.  It might have a hole in it or two.  It’s okay.  Fold the strip into thirds like this…

Then, give it a pat to flatten a bit more, flour it again and roll it back through like this…

Repeat several times.  Fold, flour, roll.  Repeat.

Then when the dough is looking more pliant and squarish rather than rectangular, you can adjust the thickness setting on your pasta maker to however thick you like your noodles (“5” or so for our noodles, we like them pretty thick – they will swell a bit when you cook them), add another dusting of flour, and roll it through again.

At this point, you will have a long, thin piece of dough.  I usually cut it in half and work with just half at a time.  Roll it through a couple of more times with flour if you want to smooth it, but I usually don’t fold it anymore.  (If at any point it all bunches up and gets ruined, just remember that it’s not really ruined, it just needs to be rolled out again, starting from the top and making sure to use enough flour this time so it doesn’t stick.)

Now you need to switch your machine to start cutting the noodles. Dust again with flour and feed dough through the noodle cutting side of the machine.

As you cut the noodles, immediate separate them with your fingers and dredge them through a pile of flour to coat them.

If you don’t want to use them immediately, you can freeze them.  Spread them out in a single layer on a large pan or cookie sheet and freeze.  Once frozen, the noodles can be transferred to a gallon size ziplock bag.  They may clump up a little in the bag as they sit in your freezer, but usually separate again without any problems when you add them to hot broth (providing they have been well floured.)  When ready to use, add them frozen into hot broth and stir gently to help separate them.

Usually though, you will be using them right away.  Here is our favorite way to use homemade egg noodles.  Super easy and delicious…you will notice it has no veggies in it.  My kiddos much prefer it this way.  They prefer their veggies (carrot sticks) uncooked, on the side.

 

Basic Turkey (or Chicken) Noodle Soup

About 8 cups turkey or chicken broth
2 packages turkey gravy mix (we use Durkee’s Turkey Gravy mix)
Homemade egg noodles
Turkey or chicken meat if desired.
Chicken bullion, dried parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Stir gravy mix into cold chicken/turkey broth to dissolve.  Heat to boiling.  Add noodles.  Cook until done (usually about 20 min.)  Add turkey/chicken meat if you like.  Add bullion, salt, and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle with dried parsley.  Serve.

The noodles can also be used in other chicken soup recipes.  And if you don’t have time or don’t want to hand make your noodles, you can always use dried store bought egg noodles (Costco sells them in a giant bag – no surprise there) or frozen egg noodles to make the soup.  However, they just don’t taste quite the same. 🙂  Happy noodling!

Kate

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