– Click here for this recipe in Dutch -> Kippensoep –
‘They’ are promising us rain later this week. And not the rain we had a few times now since our arrival in Los Angeles, no we are talking about the Dutch kind of rain. One to two inches (2.5 – 5 cm), that’s a lot! Especially for LA 😉
I have the feeling the whole city is preparing to cope with the rain and I’m also planning ahead. I just don’t want to leave the house if it isn’t necessary. It’s not because I’m made of sugar, come on, I grew up in the Netherlands where it always rains a lot!
No, it’s just because the Angelenos aren’t used to rain, so when the first drops fall everybody is panicking. They will brake suddenly and drive really slow – like 20 mph instead of 65 on the highway.. I bet traffic will be worse than the recent Valentines Day traffic. Also the roads will be slippery because of all the dirt.
So no, I won’t go outside so I will just stay home. I have to remind myself to take the chair cushions on the balcony chairs inside. And to set out some bowls on the balcony so I can catch some water for the plants. But most important: I will go hiking today instead of tomorrow (when they’re also predicting some rain) and I cooked and photographed some new recipes for my blog yesterday instead of later this week. I use daylight for photographing, the rest of the week will be cloudy and I prefer sunny pics 😉
See! The expected rain rules my whole week!
While living in Amsterdam, I had no choice. Sunshine or rain, you can’t let the weather control your schedule. Oh boy, I’m turning more Angeleno than I’m aware of.
On rainy (sun)days I loved to make a big pot of soup, I would let it simmer for hours so the whole house would smell like it.
My absolute favorite soup is chicken soup, especially this chicken noodle soup with leeks from my mom. I recently made this slow cooker version of it, I changed the recipe a bit but I ended up with the same delicious chicken noodle soup!
In the Netherlands they have a thin pasta called ‘vermicelli’, which are soup noodles. Here in LA I used soba noodles instead.
My butcher gave me two chicken carcasses which both still had plenty of meat on. It was quite a job to remove all the teeny tiny bones from the soup, but it’s also a job I really like. Cooking is my zen therapy and this was like a free meditation 😉 Feel free to use chicken wings or legs instead of the carcasses.
Rainy days call for soup, here is the slow cooker version of my mom’s chicken noodle soup with leeks:
This is the slow cooker version of my mom's chicken noodle soup with leeks. She calls it 'Swedish chicken soup' but I have no idea why 😉
Ingredients
- Approx. 2.5 lbs chicken (carcasses e.g.)
- 1 Tbsp curry powder
- 1 tsp ground mace
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 big leek
- 1 onion
- 64 floz chicken stock
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 big sprig of thyme
- 3 oz soba noodles
Instructions
- Let the chicken come to room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Mix the curry powder with the mace and black pepper and marinate the chicken in this dry rub mixture.
- Put the chicken in the slow cooker.
- Cut the leek in half in length and slice thinly. Do the same to the onion: half and slice thinly. Put on top of the chicken in the slow cooker.
- Add the chicken stock to the slowcooker as well as the bay leaves and the thyme.
- Let it cook for 8 – 10 hours on low.
- Take the chicken out of the slow cooker and let it cool off a bit. In my case the meat already fell of the bone, loved it! Discard all the bones and shred the chicken into small bite-size pieces.
- Put the chicken back in to the soup and discard the bay leaves and thyme.
- Also, add the soba noodles to the warm soup and stir until they’re soft.
- Your chicken noodle soup with leeks is now ready!
- Tip: sprinkle some curry powder in your bowl before serving.
Enjoy!
Seriously? That just made me laugh… It’s kind of the thing that happens here when it snows. Sudden panick attack. If you tell that to people in Sweden or Norway they also start to laugh uncontrollably… Love that soup though!!
Yes indeed, it’s the same as snow in the Netherlands! I will just stay in tomorrow, it already rained a lot last night!
LOL about LA drivers. But, when it hasn’t rained in forever there is oil on the roads, as well as the dirt you mentioned, making for very slick roads. Lots of drivers here don’t think and drive as if there is no change in weather. I predict an uptick in crashes.
Yes, you are now one of ‘us’ 🙂 As for me, I will still bike to work (Gazelle & Dutch poncho FTW) but will be extra careful.
And LOL about vermicelli. We have that here. I do like your idea for noodles better. I use vemicelli when making Lebanese rice.
[…] here for this recipe in English -> Chicken noodle soup with leeks […]
[…] heb zelfs eens ‘s nachts kippensoep gemaakt in de slowcooker. De volgende ochtend werd ik wakker met het idee: ‘oh de buren zijn […]
Het ziet er heerlijk uit! En sinds vandaag trotse bezitter van een slowcooker. Ik zou graag dit recept maken maar mijn engels is niet zo goed. Heb je ook een NL vertaling? Groetjes Nathalie