While at our daughter’s recently she and my husband were outdoors doing yardwork and I was inside cooking Chicken & Dumpling Soup. Love that soup! Our grandchild loved it too, especialy the dumplings. She called it Dumpling Soup with Chicken. That tells you what part she likes the best! The trick is to use baked chicken pieces. Most of the fat is rendered off during baking and the flavor is so delicious when added to soup. The truth is I cannot stand having raw chicken added to my soup. The flavor from baked chicken is richer, better. The soup seems thin at first, but once the dumplings cook it thickens so nicely. Ladling broth over the dumplings at the end gives the dumplings a nice finish. This is so good, whatever you call it.
2 large bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 box low-sodium chicken stock, about 1 quart
4 cups water
1 medium onion, finely diced
¾ cup diced carrots
¾ cup diced potatoes, with peel
1/2 cup finely diced celery
1 cup packed spinach leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon ground thyme
2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground marjoram
1 teaspoon celery seed
½ teaspoon ground rosemary
1 tespoon salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground sage
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon seasame seed oil
Soup In large dutch oven heat olive oil and sauté onions and celery and cook until onions are transluscent. Add sesame oil and add carrots and potatoes. Saute on medium heat 2 minutes. Add stock, water and spices. Add whole chicken thighs. Stir and cook, covered, 2 hours on medium low, stirring frequently. Remove thighs and cool. When cool separate meat, rough chop, and return to soup. Add spinach and cook 30 minutes, covered. Heat to boiling, stirring frequently and drop dumplings onto soup. Reduce to medium heat and cook covered 10 minutes. Remove lid and cook 10 additional minutes. During last 2 minutes of cooking ladle soup liquid continuously over the tops of the dumplings. You have soup!
Baked Chicken Thighs for the Soup Pot
2 large thighs, bone-in, skin-on, well washed.
Line pan with foil. Place thighs in foil so foil edge is close to thighs. Salt and pepper. Bake skin side down 15 minutes at 375. Turn and bake additional 15 minutes or or until meat reaches 160 degrees. I always make several thighs at a time. The meat has so many uses and freezes well.
Dumplings
1 ½ cup flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon dried parsley
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
Crumble cold butter in bowl. Add flour, salt, baking powder and parsley. With fork or pastry blender cut in butter until you have fine crumbs. Gently stir in milk. Batter will be thick and lumpy. Do not overmix. Drop onto soup. Cook on medium covered for 10 minutes, and uncovered for an additional 10 minutes.
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