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Thursday, July 20, 2006

Homemade Noodles and Rooster soup

Lets Cook! Now this is the creepiest picture I have taken yet, and I decided it had to be shared.

Place one very relaxed rooster carcass into a pot and allow to simmer for two hours or more. The meat should fall right off the bone. {This is the second rooster that I dressed}

Once the rooster has cooled off enough to handle, peel off the skin and remove any bone you happen to find. Place in a smaller pot and add as much carrots, onions, Pok Choi {or celery, but as we couldn't find celery seed to grow, we grew the Chinese cabbage that is similar} potatoes, peas and whatever vegetable you wish to add to it. Add more chicken stock, garlic, salt and pepper. {If canning use canning salt over the table salt. Table salt contains anti- caking ingredients that will discolor your jars. White residue looking stuff at the bottom of the glass that is a joy to remove} Allow the mixture to slowly "stew" while you make noodles. Make noodles for the first time, realize that it will take longer than the soup, place soup in fridge, and worry about it the next day

How hard is it really to make homemade noodles? If you have the right gear, not hard at all. Of course this is my journal, and I must make things more complicated than necessary.

Make a well with 2 cups of flour, pour 2 goose eggs or four chicken eggs into the center, and add 1 tsp of salt. {Simple} Mix well. If sticky add flour, if too dry add a little oil. That's the recipe I had to follow. It wasn't too sticky, nor was it dry, it just didn't want to stay together using a spoon. I kneaded it a bit, that seemed to work. Yet because of my meddling, it became sticky and I had to add a lot of flour to be able to roll it out. Once you have rolled it out as flat as you are capable f doing without it shrinking back up on you, you need to allow it to dry before cutting. Destiny, my name is Impatience. Half a day later, I was caught slicing up the noodles, the dough still wasn't dry.
Slicing noodles shouldn't be such a chore. But if you do not have one of those there fancy modern noodle slicing thing-a-ma-bobbers, you will spend the next hour or two of your life painstakingly cutting flat dough into string. {I wonder how old school I am going to actually get around here} The dough was still wet. When I was finally finished, I had to allow it to dry some more. BAH HUMBUG! Destiny, my name is incredibly impatient. I have other things to do besides watching dough dry. I sucked it up and started canning preparations. And that when it happened {Please insert that dramatic music here}



This, Ladies and Gentlemen is what happens when a rooster gets his revenge. That would be a puncture wound. I was cleaning out the pot that I had first cooked the rooster in, as it is the only large one I have. Apparently I hadn't got all the small bones out of it, and I merrily began to scrub away, it embedded itself into my middle finger {Think the rooster is saying something there?} I made sailors a couple of States away blush. My loving husband could be heard over the cursing with a very caring "What!?!" as he sat in the other room, unaware of how close to death I was. I managed to do a wonderful tap dancing recital, as I sang in French. Then ran out and handed my husband the camera. "ALL MUST BE DOCUMENTED! My audience demands it." I never said I wasn't a dork. HA!

With death thwarted, I went back to my canning. The pot was cleaned out with no other incidents.

I packed the noodles into the bottom of the jars, poured the soup over them, and processed for 25 minutes in a pressure cooker. Have no idea what it tastes like, but it is canned and ready for the winter.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Only you would be struck by a dead rooster's revenge. *grin*

And why aren't you saving some of these highly amusing stories for Saturday?

Anonymous said...

Only you would be struck by a dead rooster's revenge. *grin*

And why aren't you saving some of these highly amusing stories for Saturday?

Cheryl said...

Sorry about your finger - I felt bad laughing about your injury (okay, I guess I was laughing at the reaction to the injury).
I can't wait to hear how the soup turns out!

Phelan said...

Alrescate; I have plenty of amusing stories. Ok so maybe they only amuse me...

Cheryl; that's ok, I laughed later.

Anonymous said...

Place one very relaxed rooster carcass into a pot and allow to simmer for two hours or more.

i found the words "one very relaxed rooster carcass" interesting since i'm sure said rooster wasn't all that relaxed when he was being made into a carcass!

Phelan said...

The relaxed carcass was just discribing the way the bird looks in the pot. When I took the picture, I found it disturbing in someone, but wasn't sure. So I showed it around and people kept saying it looks like it's just hanging out in a nice warm bath!

No, the rooster wasn't very relaxed on the way to becoming a carcass. He was one of our firsts, we are still trying to get the hang of it. And roosters, being high stung to begin with didn't help. But we have discovered away to make it easier on both ourselves and the bird, which I talk about in the duck post.

Connie Peterson said...

Listen, darling, I hate to burst your lovely bubble, but perhaps you should have allowed your noodles to dry even more. I am afraid that canning them with the soup might make them so soggy that they turn to mush! Please let us know if it doesn't.

I prefer rooster noodle soup - the hens usually are laying too well to put in the pot.

I had the best rooster noodel soup one day when I got tired of scarred up legs from the attack rooster and Norm did him in, I put him in a pot. That was 20 years ago, I still have scars on my legs!

Phelan said...

Connie, we had the soup the other day. And it turned out great! I now have a hand powered noodle machine and it is making things a lot easier.

Stephanie Appleton said...

That first picture was eerie!

Anonymous said...

I'm not a master canner by any means, but isn't 25 minutes too short for a product containing meat? My understanding is 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts at 10 lbs of pressure (add a pound of pressure for every 1,000 feet elevation over 1,000 feet above sea level).

I would be concerned that some spore forming bacteria (such as botulina) may have survived the short processing.

Robbyn said...

Before pushing the Rooster Noodle Soup link, I wasn't sure how far back you were going to document the "from scratch" part of the rooster...LOL...

I was very relieved to see your Rooster Jacuzzi picture rather than the chopping block (I'll learn that, but I'm not sure I want to in pics on a soup recipe post, ha!)

The soup looks great! I usually add a pinch of turmeric to my chicken stock just for the beautiful yellow, but not sure what that would do to home canned. Congrats on the noodles! I've never tried that yet :)

Phelan said...

Kilgor, I followed the updated standards for home canning when I processed it. You can have a chance of bacteria with anything you can. Always boil before tasting to pervent yourself from getting sick. There is also a disclaimer and a link to the USDA on my sidebar. But thank you for your concern.

Robbyn, that would be the entry entitled, Butchering your own Chicken. It's actually funny, so I have been told.

Celeste said...

After butchering 117 roosters, including in 2 days I refuse to do it again.
the soup looks good.

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads said...

That looks great! Your commentary throughout had me cracking up as I was reading the post. :)

Alexandra said...

Hope the soup turns out. Even if the noodles are soggy, it will still taste good. It will probably just thicken it.

Anonymous said...

There's a nice little hand gadget called a rotary cutter that doubles very well as a noodle cutter - it makes nice uniform noodles!

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