Tags
Chinese, healthy, Home Cooking, Noodles, One bowl meal, Soup
Ingredients
Soup (for 7-8 pax)
- 1 Whole chicken
- 3-4 Spare ribs chunks
- 4-5 Cloves of peeled Garlic, smushed
- Optional: 2 Medium Carrots, 1 Large Onion and some fresh Corn
- 2-3 tbsp Soy sauce or to taste
- 1/2 tbsp White pepper
Noodles
- Udon noodles (You can buy these from supermarkets in packets)
Toppings/Condiments
- 4 Fish balls per bowl
- Vegetables, you could use spinach, pak choy, whatever you like
- 2-3 Chilli padi pieces per person, sliced
- Soy Sauce
Cooking Instructions
- Rinse the chicken in running water and get rid of any remaining feathers. Clean out the cavity of the chicken and rinse with running water as well.
- Next, remove excess fat and skin of the chicken. You do not want all the extra chicken grease floating about on the surface of the soup. I like to remove the head of the chicken (I feel guilty and sick everytime I fish out the chicken head from the soup so I just remove it at the start) as well as the tail of the chicken as I find the smell/taste too strong. Kind of like… chicken bum =(
- Lower the chicken and spare ribs into boiling hot water for about 5 minutes to get rid of the extra blood and fat. Throw out this water after 5 minutes and replenish the pot with fresh hot water. Make sure you have enough water to cover the whole chicken and have about 2 inches of water above the chicken.
- At this point you can add the garlic. If you prefer your broth to be a little sweeter, throw in some chunks of carrot, onions and fresh corn. You may add sliced ginger as well if you like.
- As the water boils, skim off the scum and fat from the surface of the soup. You can recognize it by the dirty looking froth that emerges after several minutes of cooking the soup. These would consist of fat and blood and if not removed, will cloud the soup. Continuously skimming off the scum as you cook will give you a clear, appetizing broth.
- Keep the pot on medium-high heat for about 40 minutes, then turn off the gas and let it stand for another hour. Season with white pepper and light soy sauce.
- Prepare the udon according to the packet instructions, make sure you do not cook the udon in the chicken broth itself as it imparts its flavour into the soup. Not yummy at all. Also ensure that udon is still chewy, don’t overcook it as it gets mushy.
- Drain the water from your noodles and place in serving bowl.
- Cook your fishballs and vegetables in the soup.
- Ladle your soup, fishballs, vegetables and some chicken meat into the serving bowl over the noodles.
- Serve with cut chilli padi and soy sauce.