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Thursday, January 03, 2008

Smoked Turkey Soup With Homemade Noodles



I'm not sure I can really call this a "recipe" as most of what I did was haphazard. As I still have quite a bit of the smoked turkey to use, soup seemed like a pretty obvious dumping ground for it. Sorry, that sounds terrible to say, but a little smoked turkey goes a long way…and we unfortunately have a lot of it. Anyway, I made some noodles using THIS recipe I've posted before.

The soup is going to be very salty due to the smoked meat. I wouldn't try doing this unless you have your own stock on hand, or a low-sodium commercial version. Concentrate or cubes will be too much for it. Luckily, I'd made a large amount of chicken stock last week and reduced it to glaze-so I was set with that difficult step. I also used quite a bit of butter (five tablespoon). You could substitute olive oil, though it won't have the same richness. As with most soup recipes, you'll need to keep tasting and testing until you get the balance you want. I relied on a good amount of herbs to counteract the smokiness of the turkey. Were I making this with chicken or unsmoked poultry, perhaps I'd go a bit easier on the tarragon.

I should note that the soup was quite good. For a turkey I didn't care for carved and served "as is", it takes on a completely different texture and flavour in soup. Yes, the smokiness is still dominant (my husband walked in and wanted to know if I was coking bacon-unlikely, I've never eaten bacon) but the herbs really get a chance to develop along with the butter, onions and carrots.


You Will Need:

Fresh Noodles (or dumplings if you prefer)
4 cups strong, low sodium chicken stock
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 stalks celery, scraped and chopped
1 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 tablespoons chopped parsley
1-½ tablespoons dried thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
Five tablespoons unsalted butter
1-cup corn (rinsed if tinned, defrosted if frozen)
1-2 cups pieces, cubes, strings (use the pieces that aren't as nice for sandwiches) smoked turkey
Extra water, if needed

Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, parsley, thyme, rosemary and bay leaves. Sauté just until the vegetables are soft. Slowly add the broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a low simmer. Add the corn and turkey. Cover, leaving about an inch to vent and simmer for about an hour, skimming if needed. Soup can be cooked ahead of noodles to this point and set in icebox until needed. If serving right away, proceed with noodles.

About thirty minutes before serving, cook the noodles in a large pot of salted water, boiling for approximately twenty minutes (they are heavy noodles, but will vary depending on how thin you rolled them. Best rule of thumb is to keep checking-but you already knew that.

Drain noodles and add to soup. Re-warm and serve hot.

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