Chicken noodle soup with a clear broth

Thighs, not a boiled carcass and a prayer. Boneless thighs give you meat that stays moist after 30 minutes, and the broth stays clear if you never let it boil hard. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and the soup looks cloudy and tastes greasy. A shiver is enough.

Start the vegetables in oil so they taste cooked, not like they were dropped into hot water. Eight minutes is the difference between a sweet onion and a raw one.

Noodles at the end

Dried egg noodles drink broth and then keep drinking in the fridge. Cook them in the soup only until they are just tender, and only for the bowls you are eating now. If you are keeping leftovers, cook the noodles in a separate pot and add them to each bowl. Otherwise tomorrow's soup is a noodle brick in a spoon of broth.

180 g of dried noodles serves six if the broth is the point. Salt is 2 teaspoons in the pot, then taste at the end. Chicken and noodles both need more salt than people expect, and undersalted soup tastes like hot water no matter how long it simmered.

A squeeze of lemon at the table brightens it. Parsley goes in off the heat so it stays green. The soup, without noodles, keeps four days in the fridge and freezes for three months.