Delectables with Dan: Pork Noodle Soup



Earlier this year I talked about wanting to branch out from just doing sweets and desserts on Delectables with Dan and try out dinner ideas among other things, so here we are with Danny's Pork Noodle soup. It's got a bit of an Asian influence I guess. The recipe below is listed for 4 portions. You'll have some leftover broth you can re-use with roasted chicken breast lightly seasoned with garlic and oregano or make more pork chops for.

1 carton of vegetable stock
1/2 carton of low-sodium chicken stock
2 heads of fresh broccoli,
3-4 medium-sized carrots
2-3-medium-sized celery stocks
2 tablespoons garlic salt 
2 tablespoons fresh cracked black pepper
2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 
1 package egg noodles 

I made mine in a crockpot, but you can easily make it on a cooktop with the heat on low or simmer, depending on your settings. The first thing you want to do is pour in your vegetables and chicken stocks into your crockpot. Set your crockpot to low and allow the stocks to start warming. Chop the carrots into even sized wheels and add to the stock. You're going to want the carrots to soak up the liquid, it will give them a nice flavour.

While they're starting to flavour up, we're going to dice up some celery stalks. You should try to make them as evenly sized as possible. Add them to the carrots, put the top on and allow them to simmer on low for roughly two hours. You want them to flavour and soften slowly. Leave it on low, do not bring the liquid up to a boil. You don't want that.



After you've added your veg, it's time to turn your attention to your pork chops. What you want to do is rub them with sea salt and garlic and drizzle them with olive oil. Put them in your baking dish and wrap them with clingfilm before setting them in the fridge to chill. If you don't have fresh garlic, use garlic salt like I did. I think in the ingreidents I said garlic salt, but if you are using fresh garlic, use 1-2 crushed cloves and add a pinch of salt.

Chop up some broccoli, using only the crowns. You don't want the steams. Let's be real, they're unattractive and they test like shit. They'd throw off the entire dish. Not in my kitchen. You want to put the broccoli in about 45 minutes before you're going to serve. This allows for enough time for the vegetable to steam up nicely, soaking up the flavour of the broth. Make sure that you don't add too much broccoli; if you're not that big on it, you can reduce the amount you add, but remember, you're going to need it later in the evening. (And no, that's not one of my usual sexual metaphors.)




When you put your broccoli in to steam, put your pork chops into cook at 180C (350F). They'll take about 45-50 minutes to cook. Halfway between the cook time, depending on your oven, you're going to want to flip your pork chops over so they get that nice golden colour on both sides. When you do this, this is the time to crack some fresh pepper over them.

20-30 minutes into the pork chop cook time is when you're going to add your noodles to the crock pot to cook. If you don't have room in your crockpot for the noodles to cook, do them in a separate pot on the stove. Make sure to add a bit of salt to your pasta water. I use a low-sodium salt for this and it works just great. I think I order it from Amazon?? I'm sure its available there or in tonnes of other places. When you add your noodles to cook, give the vegetables a few decent stirs with your cooking spoon. You don't want anything sticking to the bottom of the pot.



Oh, look at that colour, will you? Now that's how you do pork chops in an oven! Then we've got that nice contrast of colour with the noodles and veg in the broth. So lovely. Allow your meat to sit five minutes before slicing each chop into medium-sized thickness horizontal stripes. Don't use a steak knife for this, a serrated knife is great for this I've found. Once you've done that you're almost ready to eat.



Carefully ladle your soup into a large soup bowl; Make sure that you have room to add your meat, you don't want overflow, like some people I know...Once you've added a decent, human-sized portion to the bowl, place your meat on top of the vegetables and noodles. They will serve as a nice supportive bed for the meat, so make sure that you have enough of them in the bowl.

What a fucking presentation!
That's how you do a meal!
I'm looking to do a steak one for an upcoming Delectables with Dan, but no promises. We'll see what's in the cards as the days slip by. Maybe a Montreal Beef? Hm. So many ideas, so little time. Thanks for slurping my noodles. Until next time. Stay hungry, bitches. 


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