Tonight’s Dinner: Clove scented Oriental soup with chicken and glass noodle

Welcome back! Tonight it has been my first self-cooked dinner since a couple of weeks; my family come over to visit me and, you know, mommy does it better! I managed to put together a nice lasagne for them and friends a couple of days ago though ;). Anyway, back on track for tonight’s dinner I decided to put together a soup oriental inspired. It has been quite some time since I ate glass noodle and today while shopping at my grocery store I got inspired by them. So, this is what I ended up doing:

Clove scented Oriental soup with chicken and glass noodle.

Ingredients (for at least 2 people):
• 500g chicken (I used drumsticks);
• 1 small carrot chopped;
• 1/2 celery stalk chopped;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 4 whole cloves;
• 1 handful of curry leaves;
• 1 small ginger root washed and sliced;
• Few black peppercorns;
• 1/2 cup of fava beans, blanched;
• 1/2 cup of baby pea, blanched;
• 2 bundle of glass noodle;
• 1 small red chilli, sliced (if you prefer a milder dish, take away from the chilli the seeds and the internal membranes before slicing it);
• 1 tbsp of soy sauce;
• Salt to taste.

Procedure:
Start by preparing the chicken stock. In a stockpot, slightly brown the chicken pieces from the skin side. Peel one clove of garlic, mash it down with the blade of your knife and add it to the stockpot with the carrot, the celery, the curry leaves, the cloves, the slices ginger root and the peppercorn. Cover with warm water and bring to boil. Lower down the flame and simmer for 1hour.
When ready, pick the chicken out of the broth and set aside. Pass the stock through a sieve pressing the solids with a ladle to push through all the liquid. Poor back the stock in the stockpot and season it with the soy sauce and salt. Add in the sliced chilli, the beans and the glass noodle. Put back on very low heat to hydrate the noodle for 8min (see package for exact cooking time).
In the meantime, remove the skin from the chicken and tear apart the meat into the serving bowls. Peel and thinly chop the other clove of garlic and sprinkle it on top of the chicken (you may also add a splash of soy sauce to it if you wish).
When the noodle will be ready transfer the whole soup to the bowls and enjoy!

I found this soup quite interesting. The flavours are very earthy with the clove coming trough as the backbone aroma of the whole dish while the curry leaves work more on the flavour side. The stock had a nice body and mouth feel, quite spicy from the chilli. The crunchy beans add a note of pleasant sweetness and texture contrast to the soft noodle and the springy juicy meat.
Let me know what you think of it.