We were hit with some pretty serious snow this weekend here in the northeast. And when you know you're going to be snowed-in there are certain things you must do. Namely get lots of firewood, an exorbitant amount of food, and make sure your siblings sleep over to enjoy binge-watching tv shows with you. Most always when it is a snowy or particularly cold weekend, I can be found making one of two things (who are we kidding, I make both). Those things being a nice big pot of homemade tomato sauce, and chicken soup. There really are few things better than a veritable hot tub that you have created by boiling some of the simplest ingredients together. There's a reason those books were called chicken soup for the SOUL. Once you taste this chicken broth you will have made yourself, you'll know exactly what I mean.
Yesterday I was particularly excited to try my hand at my own take of chicken and dumplings. You might say this is the perfect comfort food combination of a guy from Central Florida (traditional Chicken and Dumplings) and a girl from North Jersey (who likes a good ol' Matzah Ball soup whenever I can get my hands on the stuff). So here it is folks! Pre-dumpling this recipe is the one I use for the base of most every soup I create, changing up veggies or starches depending on what I have on hand or what we're in the mood for.
You will need:
- About 2 pounds of chicken cut up- meaning some breast some legs whatever you prefer. However some or all must be on the bone for max flavor. Many supermarkets have a precut on the bone pack of legs and breasts (usually called a griller pack- I always get mine at trader joes)
- 1 bunch celery chopped in large chunks ( you can also cut some small and add later if you like them in your finished soup)
- 1 medium or 2 small onions skin removed, quartered
- 1 head of garlic cut in half across all the cloves (literally cutting it in the middle to expose all the cloves)
- Small bunch parsley with stems
- Small bunch dill with stems
- 6 medium carrots cut in small pieces (add at the end)
For the dumplings: (I adapted mine from Nancy Fuller's recipe which can be found on foodnetwork.com) This will make a good amount of dumpling mixture, I saved mine and plan to make this again for a quick weeknight dinner.
- 2 and 1/4 cup flour
-2 tablespoons butter
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-2 teaspoons salt
- 3/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened plain Almond Milk to keep it lactose free) plus more if needed
-chopped fresh herbs to your liking, I did dill and parsley and added a pretty hefty amount so you could really see the dumplings flecked with herbs
Bring the largest pot you have to boil water with celery, onions, 1/2 head of garlic, 5 sprigs each of dill and parsley (stems and all). Once boiling add 2 tablespoons of salt and chicken pieces. Gently boil on medium heat for 20 minutes uncovered. Cover, leaving a small lip of the pot uncovered for steam to release and lower heat to med-low. Boil for another 15 minutes, take out any white meat chicken and let everything else boil for additional 10 minutes.
During this time make your dumpling mixture. For the dumplings: In a medium bowl, add the flour. Use two butter knives to cut in the butter until it is incorporated and not in large chunks. Next, add the milk, baking powder, salt and eggs mixing with a fork to keep it light. Add additional milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, if necessary (or flower if you feel like the mixture is way too loose). The dough should be moist but not too wet.
After the additional 10 minutes remove everything from the pot. Taste the broth (this will undoubtedly be the best chicken broth you ever tasted!) for seasoning. If the liquid level seems a little low add water, taste again and add salt and pepper of needed.
Add the diced carrots and celery, boil until soft about 5 minutes with the lid on. During this time pull apart chicken. This will make a lot of chicken so I usually add some to my soup and use some for chicken salad or save for over a salad or in a stir fry.
Once the veggies are soft add the chicken back into the pot. Using 2 small spoons, drop in little balls of dumpling mixture. They will get quite large in the broth so even if your little dough ball seems small, go smaller (we're talking maybe ping-pong ball size or smaller). Gently drop them in and create space with the spoon as you do, so that they don't all stick and become one giant dumpling (though that sounds delicious). Once you've dropped in enough dumplings for your needs (I'd say we had about 20-split among 4 of us which was perfect) put the lid on, reduce the heat to medium and boil for 10-12 minutes. Dumplings will rise to the top and be fully cooked deliciously puffed dough balls.
Turn off the heat and sprinkle herbs over the top. We like it herby here, and used dill, parsley and thyme.
The only thing left to do is enjoy a nice warm bowl of comfort.
