
Chicken stock. The basis for chicken noodle soup. Easy. Preheat oven to 450F. In a roasting pan, take several pounds (let’s say 4 pounds) of wings and thighs and drumsticks. Coat liberally with salt and pepper and add two to three onions, cut in half, several stalks of celery, cut in half, a few carrots, cut up in a few piece and a hed of garlic, cut in half. Drizzle with about 1/2 cup of olive oil and toss. Roast at 450F until the pieces of chicken have browned nicely and are caramel colored, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Remove from oven, remove all of the chicken and vegetables to a large stock pot, and cover with cold water. Add about a teaspoon of pepper corns, a bay leaf, but NO salt as of yet.
To the roaster add about two to three cups of water and simmer on the stove while scraping up the bits left in the pan (aka fond). Add to the stock pot and simmer for about 3 hours, partially covered. When cool, remove all of the solids and refrigerate overnight. The next morning you can remove the fat easily and there you have the basis for the most delicious chicken soup. Use the pieces of chicken as garnish for the soup. Most of it will have fallen apart so if you like you may cook some separate pieces of chicken in the broth when you are making the soup.
For the chicken soup, decide how much soup you want, and place that amount in a large pot. Add steamed carrots and celery (which you have steamed separately), as well as some precooked noodles that you have on the side.
Do not cook the noodles in the soup or the soup will become too thick. When preparing the chicken soup, you may now add salt and pepper to taste, simmering gently. The carrots may be cooked in the soup as well as the celery but the noodles must be cooked separately and served from a separate bowl as well.
If you are adding chicken (apart from the chicken that it took to make the soup), take this time to add a few fresh thighs to your soup, or breasts, and simmer until cooked through. Then remove and cut into pieces and add to the soup, with the carrots and the celery and the noodles. Enjoy!