This Midwestern Hen and Noodles Is Method Extra Satisfying Than Soup

Writing about Midwestern meals can really feel at instances like a tough promote—the trendy equal of these Nineteenth-century commercials luring homesteaders to the Plains. Currently, I’ve fantasized a couple of billboard of my very own: “PASTA OR POTATOES? IN THE MIDWEST, YOU DON’T NEED TO CHOOSE.”

I’m considering right here of my childhood consolation meal: Midwestern rooster and noodles. In Iowa, the place I grew up, this didn’t imply soup. It meant juicy hunks of rooster coated in a roux-thickened gravy (typically augmented with milk or cream) simmered with chewy, home made egg noodles, all served over fluffy mashed potatoes. 

My health-minded mother would typically omit the mashed potatoes—feeling, as you may think, that two starches was gilding the lily. For my part, somewhat gilt is sweet.

Like a number of homespun dishes, the origins of Midwestern rooster and noodles are murky. You’ll discover recipes labeled “Amish,” “Midwestern,” or “Hoosier,” relying on the supply. In 1984, the Indianapolis Star declared rooster and noodles the “one dish you all the time discover on the desk of a real Hoosier.” Thirty-some years later, the Iowa Metropolis Press-Citizen decreed it a “basic Iowa dish that conjures up photos of farms and fields.” 

I’ll let the “I” states duke it out. In the meantime, I’ve eaten rooster and noodles at roadside cafes throughout Missouri and Kansas and swapped childhood recollections of the dish with my Ohio-native husband, fellow Critical Eats author Jed Portman.

The Fundamentals for Nice Hen and Noodles

The uniting rules of nice rooster and noodles are the identical in all places: simplicity, seasoning, and a farm-worker’s lust for available carbohydrates. That simplicity is one cause why I’ve jettisoned widespread aromatics on this recipe. Carrots, celery, and onion are superb associates for a soup, however rooster and noodles ought to style foremost like super-savory roast rooster. The one seasonings are salt and extra black pepper than you assume you want. 

Given that easy taste profile, you would possibly count on darkish meat rooster for its additional fats and taste. Not so. Early on, I examined recipes utilizing entire chickens or rooster thighs, however the darkish meat shredded much less evenly and made the already-heavy dish style greasy and limp. Bone-in break up rooster breasts had been the reply for juicy, substantive hunks of chicken. The bones assist defend the breast from overcooking by partially insulating it from direct warmth, guaranteeing tender morsels of rooster in every chunk.

I virtually all the time favor my rooster breasts skin-on, however not for this dish. Because the pores and skin is finally eliminated, you’d simply be throwing away taste by browning it first. By eradicating the pores and skin earlier than cooking, that browned taste develops on the breast meat itself and stays within the pot, not the trash can. 

Nailing the Noodles

With a dish this easy, each part needs to be nice. Which suggests: You actually do must make the egg noodles from scratch. In the present day, many Midwestern dwelling cooks attain for frozen egg noodles, however to me, the comfort isn’t price it. In blind exams, I might instantly select the store-bought noodles, which tasted wan and pasty subsequent to contemporary, chewy egg noodles with their sensible golden hue. 

In case you’ve by no means made home made pasta earlier than, this can be a low-stress method to strive it. You don’t want a pasta curler for this recipe, and also you don’t even want a very regular hand. The recipe I landed on is successfully Niki Achitoff-Grey’s wonderful recipe for contemporary pasta, with a few adjustments. First, my dough makes use of solely egg yolks (that mentioned, don’t toss the whites: Niki has concepts for what to do with leftover egg whites). All-yolk doughs are crumblier and fewer elastic than doughs made with some proportion of egg whites, that means they’re admittedly tougher to work with and require additional kneading. However that additional little bit of upfront fuss is effectively price it for tremendous tender, vibrant yellow noodles that retain their form throughout cooking. 

The second distinction is that I’m asking you to roll out and lower the noodles by hand. Homestyle egg noodles are supposed to be thicker and extra rustic than a fragile Italian pasta. The additional heft is one more reason to forgo egg whites within the dough—in my exams, noodles made with any proportion of whites swelled additional throughout cooking. 

Simmering the noodles straight within the sauce helps thicken the gravy, leading to a shiny, silky rooster and noodles with the proper proportion of rooster to pasta in every chunk. 

Don’t Overlook the Mashed Potatoes (Or Do)

That simply leaves the lily-gilding. I haven’t included a separate mashed potato recipe right here, as a result of I don’t assume you are able to do higher than Kenji’s ultra-fluffy mashed potatoes for this objective (tl;dr: Russets, Rinse, Ricer). That mentioned, you may sub in leftover mashed potatoes so long as they’re not the custardy, creamy kind—the potatoes ought to be a scaffolding, not only a starch. It doesn’t matter what you utilize, don’t skimp on seasoning. A clean canvas doesn’t should be bland.

In fact, you may go away the potatoes out completely—it’s what my mother would do. However you’d be lacking the final word Midwestern consolation of carbs on carbs.

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