Rooster Noodle Soup

A few weeks ago, we had a rooster show up. He was a handsome fellow, so I figured I'd let him hang around if he behaved himself. Well, he didn't. He tore up my Barred Rock hen, Missy, pretty bad. He bloodied the back of her neck so badly I had to put her in the "infirmary" (old chick brooder) for a couple of days to give her a chance to heal. So, he is becoming rooster soup.

I figured I would document the process (after butcher- didn't get any pictures that day) for anyone interested. I'm working with very limited ingredients, but here we go. First, I made the noodles. Now, I've never made noodles before, but I figured I'd give it a go. We don't have any in the pantry but I had eggs, milk, flour, and salt. That's all I needed!

Ingredients
2 cups flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat, and 1 cup all purpose) 
2 eggs (fresh from the chickens' butts) 
1/4 cup milk
 a few pinches of salt
I did end up using a bit more milk and a bit more flour to get the consistency I was going for. 

 I mixed all of the ingredients in a bowl and then tossed it onto a piece of floured wax paper. I later learned that I should have used WAY more flour, as my dough stuck and I ended up having to scrape part of it off and re-roll it.

All rolled out

Once it was rolled out, I left it to sit for about 20 minutes so it could firm up a bit. Then I attacked it with a pizza cutter. I thought this would be better than a knife, but my pizza cutter is dreadfully dull so it took some doin' to get it done.

This is once I re-rolled the stuck bit. Way better than at first.. live and learn.

Then I put them on a floured towel to dry for about two hours. 

They're "artistic" noodles..

Lucky for me, I have a great kitchen helper who was super enthusiastic about this whole process.

Helpful dog is helpful

Later, we got Mr. Rooster out and stuck him in the pot, and covered him with water. 

Take that, rapist bastard. 

Brought it to a boil, and left it simmering for about an hour. Older chickens/roosters can be tough so you want to cook them for quite some time. 

Once it was pretty well cooked, I cut up some carrots, a good bit of garlic (*cough*8cloves*cough*), and some onion..

At this point I simmered it for quite some time.. I wasn't completely paying attention so I don't know exactly how long. Basically until I could easily pull bits of meat off. Then, I put a collander over a big bowl and strained the broth through. I removed the skin (I hadn't been able to get all of the little hairs off when plucking) and shredded the meat. At this point, the broth looked like real-life chicken broth out of a box. Except, you know.. better. 

Delicious golden broth

And the meat looked like.. meat. 

This guy had the thighs of a linebacker

I returned the meat and other goodies as well as my homemade noodles to the broth and boiled. Again, not sure how long. It took probably 20-25 minutes. Next time I think I'll make my noodles a bit thinner, but they certainly weren't bad. I added a bunch of herbs/spices like salt, pepper, rosemary, parsley, oregano, paprika, and a few other things. Don't tell the husband but I may have added a dash of cayenne pepper. 

Mmmmm. Smelled reeeeally good.

And here's the finished product. It's not pretty, but it was pretty damn tasty. 

Yum!