Home › Soups › Soups (Bring the stock to a boil add)
Soups (Bring the stock to a boil add)
Bring the stock to a boil; add the noodles and seasoning; let both boil together for about five minutes, and serve. The noodles may be made according to the following directions: 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt Sufficient flour to make stiff dough Beat the egg; add the salt; then the flour, sufficient to make a very stiff dough. Knead; toss on a slightly floured board, and roll as thin as possible. Cover with a towel and set aside until the surface is dry; then roll like a jelly roll and cut off thin slices. Dry, and when needed cook twenty minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and add to soup. 1 Bermuda onion, chopped
This is really two recipes run together: a noodle soup finished in stock, and the egg noodles themselves. The loose-leaf format has also left a stray ingredient line at the end that belongs to a neighbouring recipe.
- The two timings contradict each otherThe opening line says boil the noodles in the stock five minutes; the noodle directions say cook twenty minutes in salted water, then drain and add to the soup. The longer separate boil appears to be meant for fully dried noodles. Fresh-cut noodles need only a few minutes in stock; thoroughly dried ones want the longer separate boil, and twenty minutes would leave them very soft.
- The hinge is drying the sheetThe dough must sit under a towel until the surface is dry to the touch but still flexible before rolling and slicing, or the coils stick together and cut into a solid lump. Ten to twenty minutes is usually enough, depending on the room.
- "Sufficient flour"One large egg plus salt will take roughly 3/4 cup (about 100 g) of all-purpose flour to reach a very stiff dough. Work it in gradually; the dough should be dry enough to feel almost crumbly before kneading brings it together.
- Rolling thin"As thin as possible" by hand means you should be able to see the board through the sheet. A pasta roller on its second-thinnest setting does the same job, and the dough is stiff enough to take it.
- SeasoningThe recipe assumes a well-made unseasoned stock, so the salt is added at this stage. Salt the stock to taste before the noodles go in, since dried egg noodles absorb liquid and will dull the broth slightly.
- The stray onion"1 Bermuda onion, chopped" has no instruction attached and appears to belong to a neighbouring recipe. Ignore it, or soften it in the stock beforehand if you want a sweeter broth; Bermuda onions were the mild, large, flattish onions of the period, and a modern sweet onion is the nearest thing.
- YieldOne egg's worth of noodles is enough for about a quart of stock, serving three or four as a first course. The dried noodles keep several weeks in a tin.
Egg noodles cut from a rolled and dried sheet came into American kitchens largely through German and Central European cooks. The technique here is the old one: a stiff egg-and-flour dough with no water, rolled paper-thin, dried until leathery, coiled and shaved into ribbons. Drying was the point as much as the pleasure of it, since a batch of noodles made on baking day could be stored in a tin and dropped into stock later, and stock was the standing byproduct of every roast and boiled fowl.