I
wish the computer had a scratch-and-sniff feature, like my strawberry shirt
from Woolworth’s when I was kid. The smell of chicken and dumpling soup is the
kind of smell that makes you inhale deeply while your eyes roll back in your
head. Scratch-and-sniff probably wouldn’t do it justice…it didn’t for the
strawberry either.
No-one really
knows how long this recipe has been in our family. We’re all (except maybe Dad)
just really glad it is! These aren’t southern-style biscuit dumplings that are
dry in the middle. They’re more like the dumplings in knoephla soup, if you’ve
ever had that. Knoephla is more of a milk-based soup whereas this one is the
typical chicken/vegetable soup with dumplings in place of the noodles.
You could start
out with your base many different ways depending on the amount of time you have
and how much effort you want to put into it. I have taken to using the chicken bones/meat
I have left over from this recipe:
This really
is the perfect roast chicken. My boys proclaim it’s the best chicken they’ve
ever had! When I’ve carved the chickens from that meal (leaving just the right
amount of meat on the bones), I double bag the bones and put them in the
freezer to await the perfect soup day. The spices and citrus from that recipe (I use oranges
rather than lemons) make a delicious broth.
The base of
this soup is pretty easy. You will have no trouble with that. You may have to
perfect your dumplings as you go. When I first started making this on my own,
we had a few “rock or dumpling?” contests! You want to use the precise amount
of flour called for in the recipe. I always wanted it thicker, like biscuit
dough. That will get you rock dumplings. The dough will be on the sticky side –
really sticky – that’s perfect. Before you start dropping the dumplings, your
soup should be at a rolling boil. It cools off really quickly when you start
dropping the dumplings in.
You can use a
table spoon or you can use the cookie scoops like I use. I need to use them
because it’s my standard for measurement in calculating the calories. At any
rate, drop the dumplings into the boiling soup by the spoonful. They will drop
to the bottom at first and rise to the top as they cook. They expand as they
cook so use a pot with plenty of room. Cook them for the full 20 minutes, even
if it seems like they’re done before that.
The
consistency of these dumplings should be light without being airy. I have
nothing else to compare them to for you – it’s sort of unfair to say they
should have the consistency of a really good dumpling. What does that mean to
you if you’ve never had one? You will know it when you’ve mastered it and your
whole family will thank you!
Chicken
and Vegetable Soup
One or two
chicken carcasses, already cooked carved of most of the meat
8 Cups of
water
4 Cups of
chicken broth
Boil gently
for one hour.
Remove
chicken to cutting board.
Add to broth:
1 cup potato,
diced
1 cup onion,
chopped
1 cup celery,
diced
1 cup
carrots, sliced
Remove
chicken from the bone and discard bones.
Add chicken
back to the soup.
Boil gently
30-40 min.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Salt and pepper to taste.
At this
point, you could add either the dumplings from the recipe below or egg noodles
for chicken noodle soup. Dumplings are WAY better, though!
Dumplings
3 eggs,
beaten
1 ¼ cups milk
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3 cups
all-purpose flour (to make gluten-free, use Gluten Free Pantry All-purpose
flour)
Mix all
ingredients and drop by spoonful into boiling soup. Cook approximately 20
minutes.
Enjoy!
Chicken and
Vegetable Soup Nutrition Facts for 309 grams:
- Calories: 81
- Fat: 3.2
- Carbs: 7.7
- Fiber: 1.2
- Protein: 7.4
Dumplings
Nutrition Facts per dumpling:
- Calories: 69.3
- Fat: 0.4
- Carbs: 14.3
- Fiber: 0.5
- Protein: 1.2
No comments:
Post a Comment
Post a comment