Lebanese-Style Chicken Soup

Here's a delicious Lebanese soup recipe to keep you warm this winter! In place of egg noodles, we use rice and fine noodles, and it's flavored with a cinnamon stick. Eva's mother used to make this soup for her family growing up and Eva has continued making it for her family. This soup is our go-to soup for the winter and we have even enjoyed it in the summer, it's that good. :)

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast (1-2 Pounds) (any kind of chicken works as well - Eva has used a whole chicken at times and pulled the chicken off the bone once it was cooked)
• Cinnamon stick
• One Onion (peeled and cut in half)
• Water (8+ cups)
• Rice (1/2 cup uncooked)
• Fine Noodles (Sh’arieh) (1/4 cup)
• Potatoes (2 mediume sized)
• Carrots (3 regular sized or pre-packaged carrots)

Instructions:
1. Add chicken, onion, cinnamon stick, and 8 cups of water (more or less depending on amount of broth preferred) and bring to a boil
2. While boiling, use a spoon to skim the fat from the chicken that rise to the top and add it to a separate bowl. Continue doing this until the broth clears up

3. After about 45 minutes of boiling or once chicken is cooked, remove the chicken from the broth and add it to a bowl. Leave the onion in the boiling water, throw away the cinnamon stick, and let it simmer on low heat. If you don’t feel that you have enough broth, you can add 4-6 more cups of water (we usually do this because we like it with more broth)
4. Peel and dice the potato and carrots into small cubes, or however you prefer and add to the pot of chicken broth
5. Chop up cooked chicken into small bite-sized pieces and add to water
6. Add uncooked rice, 1 tablespoon of salt, and a half teaspoon of pepper (more or less to taste). Stir and continue to let it simmer

6. In the meantime, heat up 1 and a 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat in a frying pan, and add the fine noodles to toast. Turn them over until they brown
7. Once the fine noodles are browned, add them to the pot along with any excess oil and leave it on low for another 20 minutes

8. After twenty minutes, taste it to determine whether or not you want to add more salt and pepper. It's ready to serve once your potatoes and carrots have cooked, enjoy!

Sahtan!