Comfort food - Mum's chicken noodle soup

The weather in Sydney has been erratic for the past few weeks – from hot and humid for weeks on end, to cold and very wet for the past 5 or so days. Thankfully our home has cooled down over the past week as it was getting very tiring being in such a warm house and not sleeping very well. The warmer weather is also hard as I don’t really feel like standing over the stove or turning on the oven, so we tend to have a lot of salads or BBQs. But lately, I have really been craving a roast dinner, or a plate of lasagne, or a stew or something similarly wintery. So with the turn of the weather on the weekend, I decided to make a soup.

Mum’s chicken noodle soup was a favourite meal of mine as a kid. The egg pasta noodles we use come in little twirled nests of dried noodles and I loved crushing them in my hand and letting them fall into the soup. Actually, I am such a kid – I still love crushing them! I only started making this soup myself a few years ago and was thrilled when my husband told me he loved it too. Now it is a staple in our house.

The addition of egg and lemon to thicken a soup is of Mediterranean origin and soups made using this method are known as Avgolemono. To me, this is what makes this soup so good.

Mum’s Chicken Noodle Soup
2 chicken marylands, skin removed
1 brown onion, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
Extra virgin olive oil
1.5L water or pre-made light flavoured chicken stock
1-2 teaspoons chicken stock powder (to taste, if using water)
100 - 125g egg pasta noodles
pinch of thyme
2 eggs
juice of 1 lemon

Heat olive oil in a large pot. Brown maryland pieces on both sides then remove from pot. Add the onions, carrots and celery to the pot and cook on medium heat for 5-10 mins. Return the maryland pieces to the pot, add the water or stock and a pinch of thyme and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

Remove marylands from the pot and (carefully) using a fork and some tongs, pull the meat from the bones. Return the meat to the pot and discard the bones. Check flavour of stock and add stock powder if needed.

Crush noodles and add to stock – boil for 8-10 mins. Add more water/stock afterwards if necessary. Beat together 2 eggs and the juice of 1 lemon. Remove the soup from the heat and while stirring (so as not to allow the egg to cook immediately and form solid pieces), slowly add the egg/lemon mix to the soup. I usually add around ¾ of the mix and then taste it, before stopping or adding the rest.

Enjoy with some crusty buttered bread.

And, because I haven't shown much sewing lately, here's a 'Dilbert' I made last year for my sister and her boyfriend to give to his new nephew. He was made out of flannelette which meant he was lovely and cuddly, but he frayed so badly when I tried to stuff him, that he ended up needing a patch on his bum... oops!