For Christmas, my husband gave me a copy of Jenn Louis’ Chicken Soup Manifesto. It’s a great read, dividing up classic chicken soups from across the globe. I love a good pot of soup. And while I didn’t follow any of the recipes exactly, I was inspired to put together a bowl of goodness.
Living in NYC for years we came to love ramen, hot pots, and other Asian soups (especially soup dumplings, those are amazing). Now in rural Minnesota (wo)manning the family business I have to get creative with ingredients as I try to recreate some of the dishes we love.
Stock Prep
This soup was born of leftovers. First, I made “Beer Can” Chicken. And saved the chicken carcass. Add the bones to our Dutch Oven and cover with 5 cups of water. That created the stock. Then after separating the meat from the bones, I added the meat back to the stock, 1 diced onion and 3 chopped up carrots. Back on simmer for a few hours until the veggies were soft. Then into five pint containers to be frozen until we are ready to use.
Ramen Day
I pulled one of the frozen pint of chicken base to defrost. I added 32oz of organic chicken stock to the Dutch Oven turned it on low and added the (mostly defrosted) pint to the broth. Once the soup base was heated up, I turned it to low to simmer until I was ready.
In a medium saucepan I boiled water and added 1 egg. As soon as the water was really going, I set the timer for 7 minutes. After the timer went off, I put the egg in water with a couple ice cubes to stop the cooking. Once it was cool, I peeled it and set it aside.
Then I boiled the ramen noodles for 7 minutes and removed them.
Now it was time to assemble the ramen. I used one of our Clay Coyote Whiskey Bowls (We call them that because they come with a whisk. We run a very puny place.)
- Ramen noodles
- Ladle soup over top
- Add chopped shiitake mushrooms, scallions, and toasted sesame seeds
- Halve the egg (it was perfectly gooey inside) and place on top
- Serve with chopsticks and spoon
- We made a sweet and spicy chili sauce to add heat (equal parts sriracha, sesame oil, fish sauce, and honey whisked together)
We call it the “what came first ramen” because it has both chicken and egg, but it’s also a wonderful dinner discussion topic. At our house, we’ve landed on the idea that an egg came first, but not a chicken egg. A dinosaur egg, that over time evolved into a chicken. But we’re still not sure why the chicken crossed the road, the jury is still out there.
