Turkey Noodle

I started the base for this Saturday night after making the big turkey dinner extravaganza. I debated between making soup and must making a bunch of stock to put away for other recipes. There was so much meat on the carcass (I was incredibly lazy about carving, so there was even a good bit of white meat left), I decided on soup.



Still, I'd simmered the carcass in a couple gallons of chicken broth (a cheat to make a richer soup, I probably should have used water) with some onion, celery and carrots for about three hours. Some additional rubbed sage, black peppercorns, thyme also went into the drink.



The long simmer got everything nicely separated, the meat is free of the bones, the bones are disjointed, etc. You also pick up a lot of gelatin from the bones to give the soup body.

When I went to skim the fat this evening, everything under the fat was like Jell-O, a good sign.

So I strained everything out, picking the good meat from the gristle, skin and bone. I also discarded the veggies because I figured any flavor they had to offer was in the broth already. I suppose it's possible the same argument could be made for the meat, but it tasted pretty good so I kept it.

Barley got the skin and loved it even though I told him it was loaded with fat.



I chopped up some fresh celery and carrots to add to the soup and then made a batch of egg noodles. These are a lot of work, and I wondered if I wasn't an idiot for not going the stock route: I'd already be done. I beat four eggs and stirred in/kneaded in flour until I couldn't get any more flour to incorporate. The problem with this recipe, aside from a total lack of precision, is I don't have a pasta maker, so I have to roll this shit out by hand. And even going 280 lbs, leaning with all my weight on the roller, it's all I can do to get this dough almost thin enough to cut.



I like my noodles to have some tooth to them, so making a flimsier dough really isn't an option. But I need something with a pair of rollers to mash this stuff out. Or a hydraulic rolling pin.



But, even if it is a lot of work, nothing like homemade noodle soup from scratch. And I have like two gallons of the stuff. I pointed out to Em on Saturday, even if the turkey hadn't been a gift, we had this huge, festive meal for three, I packed away five hearty meals worth of leftovers, and then started a couple of gallons of soup with the rest, and all that adds up to less than ordering a couple of large pizzas.

And I'm pretty sure, besides being more meals than a couple of pizzas, all this is better nutrition to boot.