Comfort Food for the Extra Kids

I learned how to make chicken and dumplings from watching my mom for the first 19 years of my life and have been making it for more than 20 years in my house. About 10 years ago I had planned on making chicken noodle soup (sometimes when time is tight I substitute noodles for home made dumplings), but something came up and my husband stepped in and made it for me (using my instructions and my recipe). It just so happened to be the day my youngest daughter had her very bestest friend in the whole wide world Amanda over for dinner. She went crazy over this soup and has requested it every visit since, she lives 2 1/2 hours away from us now, but she always refers to as "Kaylin's Dad's Soup."

She is coming to visit this weekend to celebrate Kaylin graduating from college and despite the high humidity we are having "Kaylin's Dad's Soup," but with dumplings is for dinner tonight.

Chicken Dumplings

Broth
4 chicken legs, thighs attached with skin and bone
1 onion, peeled, kept whole
3-4 carrots, scrubbed, chopped in half, ends removed
garlic powder/salt/pepper to taste
2-3 large containers chicken broth

Dumplings
5 cups flour
5 eggs
broth or water, as needed
salt, to taste

In the biggest pot you can find, until I bought my restaurant grade pots, I used my most treasured pot that my mom gave me. It is a yellow enameled stainless steel pot that has been used and washed so much that it barely has any yellow left on it. Now I use my 10 quart heavy bottomed stainless steel pot.

Heat pot on medium high heat. Toss in your carrots, onion and chicken parts and allow the chicken to brown lightly on all sides. Fill pot about half way with water and return to heat. Add salt/pepper and garlic powder (you will probably add more throughout the cooking process) and allow pot to come to a boil.

Allow soup to boil for approximately 20 minutes, then reduce to medium heat and cook until chicken is cooked through, about another 30 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and said aside to cool. Reduce heat on soup broth, add canned chicken broth and allow to simmer while you make the dumplings.

Dumplings

Put the five cups of flour into a large bowl, make a well in the middle and put eggs in the well. Working from the center, beat eggs drawing the flour into the eggs. Continue this until the flour is mixed in enough that it would be easier to use your hands than to keep mixing with a fork.

Continue to knead dough until all is combined to make a pretty stiff dry dough. It may be necessary to add more liquid to incorporate all the flour. I usually use a little bit of broth ladled from the soup pot if I need more liquid.

Don't worry about adding too much liquid, you can always just add more flour. I only gave you measurements to give you a guide, dumplings are far from being a science. They are made more with the soul than your brain.

After the dumplings are done, you're going to want to wash all the dough off, its hard to get off, but its easier to tear off the dumplings if your hands are clean. Turn the broth up so that it boils and start dropping teaspoon sized pieces of dough into the broth, stirring occasionally so that they don't clump together. Allow to boil while dropping in the rest of the dumplings. Please do not squeeze the dumplings when making them, they need to stay loose and unformed to cook properly. If you shape them, they will become lumps of lead and never cook all the way through.

Allow dumplings to cook till done, about 20 minutes or so. If you cut one open, it will be soft and slightly mushy in appearance and not look like the dough before you dropped it in the pot.

Enjoy with some crusty bread.
hugs!
dina