Homemade Noodles

Ever have homemade noodles? Not pasta, not noodles from a package that you boiled in water at home, I mean noodles you started with a couple of cups of flour(whole wheat works fine) then added two eggs, a teaspoon of oil and a 1/3 cup of water. (tastes better with 1/2 teaspoon of salt in the flour.)
No, I thought not. Sad, very sad. I made a batch last night and cooked them in a chicken broth we made the day before. What a treat it was. While I was making the dough and rolling it out, I was back in my mothers kitchen, standing on a chair and watching her make noodles. Boy, she could cook and did it with what seemed to me to be no effort at all. I never ate a packaged noodle until I went to college and figured out that mom made cooking appear effortless, it really wasn't.
I had been threatening to make Kris a batch of homemade noodles for awhile and I finally found the gumption. Gumption is a word that I haven't heard used much recently and kind of miss. When I grew up, it was used a lot. Gumption got things done and a lack of it, was a real character flaw. I suppose when motivation became popular, gumption was discarded. (Making noodles has stirred memories and you never know what will pop out.)

Anyway, gumption is fitting for homemade noodles and motivation fits packaged noodles better. Feel the homey flavor gumption gives something? I made my noodles using gumption and they came out like I remembered them. It is akin to cooking with seasoned cast iron. You get better tasting food than you do with the same recipe and stainless steel for whatever reason.

Some of you might have the gumption it takes to make homemade noodles so I will give you a few more pointers to make your noodles come out good. Mix the eggs, oil and water together with a fork. Use some elbow grease here, it will improve the flavor. Now make a well in the flour, pour the egg mixture in and stir it together, slowly at first. Your trying not to slop the liquid up on the bare bowl where it would glom on and make your flour stick to the bowl. After the liquid and flour are mixed they form a very sticky dough so take some flour and knead it in. Work the dough for a few minutes until most of the stickyness is gone. Let the dough and the cook rest for 10 minutes or so. Have glass of wine. Enjoy the process as well as the result or your not going to do this as often as you should. Now, make sure your broth is boiling and set up an area to roll you dough out while your dough is still taking a breather.

Okay, now put some flour on the counter or whatever you using and cut the dough into quarters. Take one quarter and lay it in the flour and start flattening it. It will want to stick to things. Use flour to keep the surface of the dough dry and the rolling pin from sticking to it. Flip the dough once in awhile and make sure the flour is doing its job. The dough is elastic and you roll it out and it shrinks back. You roll it out and it shrinks back again, only this time it is not quite might as much. Keep at it until it is thin enough to be noodles. Now, get something that you can use as a straight edge. Press it against the dough and use a knife to slice off noodles. If you kept enough flour on the dough, you should be able to pick up the noodles and toss them in a loose pile. If your noodles are sticking, reread the section on keeping the dough floured while you roll it out. This time pay attention, you can't day dream and apply gumption at the same time.

If your broth is boiling hard, put the noodles in one at a time so they don't stick to each other. You are not making soup, but noodles and your not going to drain them to get rid of excess water so add keep adding noodles. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes or so. Set the table, taste the broth for saltiness, add some pepper for no particular reason (you look more like you know what your doing) and finally dish some up.

You should see immediately that your broth is now a rich gravy, the noodles are bigger than when the went in, the texture is softer and the taste is something your kids will remember for a lifetime--I know.