Harley’s Trader Joe’s Thai Noodle Rice Soup
Posted on December 9, 2025
Filed Under Culture, Food, Main, People | Comments Off on Harley’s Trader Joe’s Thai Noodle Rice Soup
My mother came from that long line of Jewish cooks who were never satisfied with a printed recipe; she was always potchkeing around with the ingredients, be it from a Jewish cookbook or an LA Times Food Section recipe. She’d add a little bit here, a little bit there. This was also true for leftovers; we might come home from a restaurant with a plate of leftover Fettuccine Alfredo, and, sure enough, for dinner the next night, we were presented with a modified Italian pasta dish she had potchked with. (Any recipe was fair game for being potchked with — except for anything by Julia Child, who was an original potchkeier.)
And a lot of time, a potchked recipe just couldn’t be duplicated: so much depended on the potchked feeling at the time of cooking. A case in point: mom’s chopped chicken liver recipe could never, ever be duplicated. Even working off a hand-written copy of her recipe, no one’s chopped chicken liver could ever come near hers. (How much salt? How much pepper? Just a bissel.)
Well, I inherited the potchke gene and regularly deviate from a recipe by increasing or substituting ingredients. I’ve always found a recipe I liked and then changed it to suit my tastes. And, sometimes, I’d even create a new recipe from my potchkeing around.
Despite battling cancer and fighting off Trump era ennui, I found the time to create this wonderful mixed-genre noodle soup:
Ingredients:
Two cups Trader Joe’s Low-Sodium Chicken Broth
One Knorr’s Chicken Bouillon Cube
One bag Trader Joe’s Thai Wheat Noodles
One egg, beaten lightly
One cup cooked Calrose rice
Green onions, chopped
Salt, pepper to taste
Preparation:
In a two-quart pot, bring the chicken broth to a slight boil and add in the bouillon cube. When the cube dissolves, add in the rice; continue a gentle boil for about one minute. Add in the egg and swirl it around with a fork until the egg is completely cooked. Break up the Thai Wheat Noodles and add them to the pot; continue with a gentle boil for one or two minutes or until the noodles are heated. Toss in green onions to taste.
If you want a thicker broth, let the liquid boil for an additional minute or two,
Serve and enjoy.
You can now experiment with additional ingredients: stir-fried chicken bits, steamed carrots, peas, broccoli, mushrooms, tofu, etc.
