Boil a large hen in 3 quarts of water. Add a few slices of ham, 1 onion sliced, some sliced mushrooms, 2 stalks of celery cut fine, 2 tomatoes and Chinese chopped herbs. Let cook three hours and strain; then boil up; add fine noodles and let cook ten minutes. Add chopped parsley and serve at once.
June 5 — No. 5
Chinese
A long-simmered fowl broth finished with noodles, written in the shorthand of a cook who assumed a hen, a stockpot and an afternoon. The hinge is the strain: everything before it is stock-making, everything after it takes ten minutes.
- "A large hen"A stewing hen — an older laying bird, 4-6 lb, with enough collagen and flavour to stand three hours. Supermarket broilers are young and will be exhausted after 90 minutes. A whole chicken plus a few extra wings or backs is the practical substitute.
- Water to birdThree quarts over three hours at a bare simmer will reduce appreciably, though how much depends on the pot and whether it is lidded. Keep it at a lazy bubble, not a rolling boil, or the broth turns cloudy and greasy.
- "Chinese chopped herbs"Vague, and probably a mixed seasoning bought at a Chinese grocery; there is no way to tell which. Coriander stems, spring onion greens and a slice or two of fresh ginger give the intended direction; star anise if you want a more aromatic result.
- The hamPossibly doing the work that a cured Chinese ham such as Jinhua does in broths of this kind. A piece of prosciutto end or a smoked ham hock does the same work; salt the finished soup only after it has cooked, since the ham does much of it.
- Skim and degreaseNot mentioned, but assumed. Skim the grey foam in the first twenty minutes, and chill the strained broth if you can so the fat lifts off in a cap.
- "Fine noodles"Thin wheat noodles. Ten minutes suits dried noodles; fresh thin wheat noodles need two to three. Cook them separately and add them to the bowls if you are not serving the whole pot at once, or they will drink the broth and go soft.
- The chicken meatThe recipe strains it out and says nothing more. Pull the breast and thigh meat, shred it, and return it to the soup — the discarded bird was likely destined for a second dish, not the bin.
- YieldSix to eight bowls as a first course, four as a meal.
This reads less like a Chinese recipe than an American cook's impression of one: a familiar technique flagged as foreign by a handful of markers. The chicken-and-ham broth is not far from the Cantonese seung tong tradition, where cured ham and old hen are simmered together for hours to build a savoury base. But "Chinese chopped herbs" is the tell — an ingredient the writer could name only by nationality. The daily-dish format promised a tour of the world from a home kitchen with a hen and a stockpot.