Made from Scratch
Walt Butcher's homemade chicken and noodles is drawing card for church dinner
By Brandy Nance
Saturday, October 20, 2007
What do you with a dozen eggs, five pounds of flour and two cooked chickens? Well, multiply that recipe by four and you get a chicken noodle supper that can feed hundreds of people.
Walt Butcher has been making homemade noodles from scratch for about 20 years and for the past 10 years he’s made his famous homemade chicken and noodles for the Saffordville United Methodist Church Harvest Supper. Proceeds of the supper go to finance church projects. Butcher, of course, is providing the featured dish.
Butcher got involved making homemade noodles because his first wife made noodles. After she passed away, Butcher said he wanted to keep the tradition up so he started to make them himself.
Today, he, along with his wife, Lois, make the noodles and cook some of the chickens with a pressure cooker. Butcher started to make noodles for the Harvest Supper after Mildred North, the lady that had the task before Butcher, couldn’t do it anymore. Butcher said there was a period of time where the supper wasn’t held, but it started back up again and Butcher has made noodles for the supper ever since.
It wasn’t long after the supper was going that there was a need to make more noodles.
“Mrs. North thought she made two (18-quart) cookers full,” Butcher said. “We decided we would have three cookers full and we ran out of food.”
Butcher said they upped the recipe to make four cookers full of chicken and noodles and they haven’t run out of food since.
A lot of work is involved in making the noodles each year, Butcher said. One cooker alone takes a dozen eggs and two chickens along with five pounds of flour. Take that times four and you have an enormous amount of ingredients.
Butcher said he really doesn’t measure stuff out when making the noodles; it just depends on how much of each ingredient it takes to get the dough not to stick to the rolling pin. He uses a cracked egg shell to measure out the milk.
After the dough is made, it is rolled out to dry. It takes a few hours for the dough to dry before it can be cut. When it’s time to cut the noodles, Butcher uses a skinner knife..
Butcher and his wife cook two of the chickens themselves. The others are cooked by other people. The chickens are cooked in a pressure cooker.
It takes an additional two to three hours to cook the noodles. About eight quarts of broth are needed to cook noodles, Butcher said.
“To make good noodles, you should cook it two to three hours and keep adding broth,” Butcher said. “That’s what makes a tender noodle.”
Butcher doesn’t stop with making the noodles for people to eat at the supper. He also makes some extra noodles that are placed in bags and are auctioned off after the supper. Any cooked noodles that are left over after the supper are put in containers and are also auctioned off.
The Butchers keep noodles on hand for other occasions, too.
“When people pass away, a bowl of chicken and noodles is good to have,” Walt Butcher said. “They’re good to have around.”
hjcary (anonymous) says...
I make noodles from scratch following my grandma's recipe. It is a fond memory I have of my grandma and enjoy making the noodles in memory of her. My grandmother's recipe also includes measuring the liquid with half an egg shell!
October 20, 2007 at 10:06 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )