Chicken ‘N’ Dumplings

It’s fall y’all. Well maybe not for my Florida friends but here in Northern Cal it’s most definitely arrived.

It was so chilly the other night I was ready for a fire. I like comfort food in the fall. Something about pastas and sauces and roasting chickens just warms my soul. So, in that mood I roasted a chicken the other day. First I marinated it for a day and night and then I roasted that sucker and boy was it good. Also, good were the smells emanating from my kitchen. My girlfriend who was on a cleanse came over and had to leave because the chicken smelled so good!

Once we had carved it up and eaten our fill there was a good amount leftover. Also, the carcass was very meaty and so full of good flavor  that it would have been a crime to just toss it so I thought, soup.

I put the carcass in a stock pot, covered it with water, tossed in a few carrots, onion, celery, garlic, black peppercorns, some apple cider vinegar and a couple of scoops of the spice rub I had leftover from the chicken. Covered the pot and after it had reached a boil I let it simmer for a few hours. The stock was wonderful and richly dark from the roasted chicken  bones.

Next I strained the stock into a bowl and pureed some of the carrots and garlic and onions that I used to flavor the stock and then added it back to the soup.

I made a few dumplings and voila! With the leftover chicken we had a wonderful and comforting meal.

One of my friends who is a vegetarian said it sounded good even to a non meat eater like her, but I think it would be very easy to do a vegetarian version of this meal. Just make a veg. broth and add lots of yummy seasonable vegetables. Then proceed the same way with the dumplings.

For the dumplings:

2 cups of flour

2 TBS baking powder

3 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1Tbs sugar

1 cup chilled soup broth ( or milk or water)

2 TBS very cold butter cut up

Optional: herbs ( I used chopped chives)

Mix all ingredients and cut together with a pastry knife or use your hands if you don’t have a pastry knife. Just make sure your hands are cold and your liquid is cold because you don’t want the butter to melt. Roll into a log and refrigerate for 20 mins up to 2 hours. Cut log into slices and drop into boiling soup. Let simmer for at least 20 minutes before eating. If you let it simmer longer the dumplings will be better. I ate some the next day and they were way better than the day before!!

Enjoy!