Chicken Noodle Soup with Asian Flavors

This is a truly beautiful dish, it has such a lovely flavour, I call it a soup, however it is a very substantial one. True comfort food. It is easy to prepare, mostly hands off, everything is cooked in the Slow Cooker, and by using the slow cooker, it extracts maximum goodness and flavour out of the poultry, herbs, spices & vegetables. Its spice level is very mild.

And this is how I make it.

Ingredients:

1 free-range 1.4kg chicken
1 fresh Tom Ka herb & spice bundle (lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, red chillies)
a piece of ginger (optional)
6 cups (1500ml) water
1 tablespoon roasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
400ml can coconut milk
2 small heads of broccoli, cut into florets
and the stems from the broccoli, cut into strips
1 bunch broccolini, cut into pieces
½ cup spring onions, diagonally sliced, white parts
200 grams rice noodle sticks
Fried shallots (for garnish)
Red capsicum strips (for garnish)

Instructions:

Place the whole chicken into the slow cooker.
Bruise the lemongrass and add it to the cooker.
Add kaffir lime leaves, galangal, red chillies (1 or 2 depending on preference), and ginger (if available).
Pour in water and add roasted sesame oil.
Cover with the lid and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 8 hours.
After cooking time, remove the chicken from the cooker.
To the slow cooker, add salt, brown sugar, soy sauce, and coconut milk.
Add broccoli, broccolini, and spring onions. Stir gently and cook for an additional hour on high.
Once the chicken has cooled, remove bones and pull apart the meat.
Prepare rice noodles according to package instructions.
After the additional hour of cooking, remove as many herbs and spices as possible.
Add cooked rice noodles to the pot. Adjust seasoning if necessary. I added another teaspoon of salt and one additional tablespoon of soy sauce.
Add chicken back to the pot. Stir gently and cook for a further 15 minutes on high.
Serve hot, garnished with fried shallots and red capsicum strips.

#chickennoodlesoup #slowcookerrecipe #chickensoup #comfortfood #comfortfoodrecipes #asianchickensoup

This is a truly beautiful dish. It has such 
a lovely flavour. I call it a soup; however,  
it is a very substantial one. True comfort food. 
It is easy to prepare, everything is cooked in  
the slow cooker, and by using the slow cooker it 
extracts maximum goodness and flavour. And this  
is how I make it. Place a free-range chicken into 
the slow cooker. Asian supermarkets are everywhere  
these days, you’ll need to visit one and ask for a 
fresh Tom Ka herb and spice bundle; this saves you  
money by not having to buy the herbs separately. 
It should contain a piece of lemongrass,  
bruise and place into the cooker, a small handful 
of kaffir lime leaves, a piece of galangal which  
belongs to the ginger family, but it’s different 
and gives the dish its distinct beautiful flavour,  
break in half and add. The bundle comes with 
two red chilies which are mild, however,  
I usually only use one chili, breaking it in half 
and tossing it in the pot. If I have any ginger  
in the fridge like I did today, I also like to add 
just a small piece broken in half. Pour in 6 cups,  
which is 1500 mls of water. Add 1 tablespoon 
of roasted sesame oil. Place on the lid and  
put the slow cooker on high for 6 hours, if 
you need to go to work you can place it on  
low for 8 hours instead. When the time is up 
remove the chicken, it will be so tender that  
it will fall apart. Then to the slow cooker add 
1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of brown sugar,  
2 tablespoons of soy sauce, a 400 ml can of good 
quality coconut milk, this makes a difference,  
two small heads of broccoli cut into small 
florets, and also the broccoli stems cut into  
strips, one bunch of broccolini cut into pieces, 
or you could just add more broccoli instead, and  
half a cup of spring onions cut on the diagonal 
into small pieces, I just use the white part of  
the spring onions. Give a gentle stir, replace 
the lid and cook for a further hour on the high
setting. Meanwhile when the chicken has cooled 
down enough to handle, remove all the bones from  
the chicken, I like keeping the chicken in larger 
pieces where possible as opposed to shredding it,  
chicken is really easy to pull from the bones, 
it doesn’t take too long. I use about 200g,  
which is half a packet of rice noodle 
sticks, following the direction on the  
packet and the directions are usually the 
same. Place the rice noodles into a bowl,  
pour over some warm water and let it sit for 
between 5 to 7 minutes until the noodles are soft,  
then drain and rinse with water and set 
aside. After the soup has been cooking  
for the further hour remove the lid, fish out 
as many of the herbs and spices as you can,  
I don’t worry too much about the kaffir lime 
leaves. Add the rice noodles to the pot,  
taste for seasoning, I added another teaspoon 
of salt and another tablespoon of soy sauce.
Add the chicken, stir gently, replace 
the lid and let everything warm up  
and another 15 minutes or so on 
the high setting. Time to serve.  
Fish out the noodles and the chicken 
and vegetables and place into bowls.
Ladle over some of that delicious broth. I like 
to garnish with fried shallots, which are readily  
available at the Asian supermarket, and for a 
bit of colouring and crunch I top with some red  
capsicum strips, and dinner is ready. This is 
a really economical dish as well; this big pot  
would be enough to serve six people easily and all 
up cost me less than $30 in ingredients. I often  
post recipes because someone asked me for the 
recipe and in this instance my mum requested it,  
because she enjoyed it so much. Thanks so much 
for watching, hopefully I’ll see you again soon.