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This past January, home from the hospital and feeling exhausted but interested in getting back to cooking real meals again – I got out my copy of Thomas Keller’s “Ad Hoc at Home,” determined to find a new recipe to try. I saw the picture of the chicken dumpling soup and decided, regardless of the preparations or the time it was going to take to make it, my husband could take little three-week old Mei and I could take a stab at preparing this soup! It took well over two hours to make since I had to stop every forty minutes or so to take care of Mei, but I got the soup made! It was a little thick and the dumplings were all different sizes, but the taste was amazing! What a great first attempt at dumplings also! Since I was too tired and rushed to get this dinner on the table, I didn’t take any pictures to document it and decided it was so good, I wanted to make it again.

I have been wanting to change my lunch routine of a sandwich to some kind of salad – so why not add a soup to it? While I was out picking up some fresh veggies, I spotted a tall, thin bottle of caesar salad dressing immediately grabbing it and headed back to get some fresh romaine hearts. This would make a great accompaniment to the soup!

Back in our kitchen, I set Mei on the counter – who has discovered that if she leans over the edge of her Bumbo chair, then she can reach all sorts of new things. She can bang on the side and top of the rice cooker and grab at Ziploc bags full of brownies or other things, towels, jars of tea, even her brightly colored long baby spoons! The silicone measuring spoons has evolved to a new toy for her outside of putting them in her mouth and rubbing her gums, she can twirl it around and pick a different spoon to shove in her mouth and talks up a storm while deciding which one to grab!

All that aside, I laid out the mountain of carrots, leeks, onions and celery and started chopping away. In the middle of chopping, while I was considering how I was going to cook the chicken for the soup – I realized that I had a wine bottle I filled with the leftover brine from the fried chicken the other day that I had been saving that I could marinate the chicken in and then poach directly in the brining liquid. This would allow the salt to flavor the meat so I wouldn’t have to add any additional salt! Perfect! I got the brining liquid out and into a small saucepan and dunked the meat right in, setting it aside for later. Once I got that done, I pulled out some leftover parchment paper and cut it down to size to create a parchment lid for my stewpot.

Now, putting vegetables at the bottom of a stainless steel pot would normally make me nervous, but the parchment lid works wonders! Nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot, and it slowly makes the veggies tender. I put a few more saucepans on the burners and started some cold water boiling, tossing in a couple of whole cloves of garlic, honey and thyme in one of them for the carrots and salt in the one for the celery. By the time the veggies were prepped, the water in the saucepans was boiling and the chicken stock went into the pot with the parchment lid – although we tossed out the lid first of course (wink!).

Cooking all the veggies separately gives each individual veggie a unique taste all its own. The carrots were a little sweet with a kick; the celery, tender, crunchy and earthy; and the soup base tasting of melted leeks, onions, carrots and celery – tying them all together. It is the way I will endeavour to make my soups in the future! Noting of course, that extra time invested in creating such a magnificent pot of soup! It reminds me of a lovely story that I will one day share with Mei – reading it to her while she downs a spoonful, spoon poised over the bowl while the pages turn, The Tale of Despereaux! The kingdom once had a festival just for soup until the Queen died, but it is a lovely little story about a mouse, a princess and a bowl of soup.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a bag of fresh gnocchi that I froze until I knew what I wanted to do with them and instead of making fresh dumplings, I decided to put these in. Although it wouldn’t be flavored with chives, I decided I would garnish the soup with chives and have the added element of potatoes that the soup previously didn’t have. Although the gnocchi was good, next time I might make my own fresh gnocchi or at least the dumplings with a different herb or flavor. While the gnocchi were bubbling away on the stove, I got out some butter and flour and made a roux to thicken the soup with.

completed roux!

Once all the veggies were ready and the soup was strained, I began whisking in the roux to thicken it with Mei on my hip – watching the whisk twirl through the soup. She loves being right there with me, doing everything I am doing and watching intently as every thing and every person moves around her. I took her into Tesco earlier to grab our couple of things and she loved every minute of it! Smiling at every person that she could get attention from, she left the store with plenty of friends and making their day a bit brighter!

Patella stayed right by my side in the kitchen also, snatching bits of boiled carrot after eating her own dinner – a new bag of kibble in a new flavor, rabbit and rice! She loved it! She even got a bit of shredded chicken as I was pulling it apart to go in the soup. I tasted it, and while I might cut some fresh lemons to boil in the brine while I’m poaching the chicken next time, it had a very nice flavor to it – light and tangy, that would serve to elevate the soup, making it feel more like a spring time edition than sticking with the recipe. I did pass on melting leeks into the soup this time, though in the colder months, it makes the soup taste warmer and earthier.

All the veggies go into the soup once the soup is thick enough, bits of shredded chicken go right into the bowl and the soup gets ladled around it once the veggies and dumplings – or gnocchi, in my case, comes to temperature. Stick a spoon in the bowl and tuck in!

As luck would have it, Mei required some playtime and attention while Patella brought me every one of her toys, vying for my attention as well, so I got in warm bites of soup here and there before the soup cooled down a bit and I could give the soup I slaved over the appreciation it deserved. It was spoonful after spoonful of perfection!

Enjoy your own bowlful! A word to the wise, if you re-use some of your cooking vessels you can make this soup using only five pots. It takes a bit of time the first time you make it, but you can also speed things up by chopping all your veggies before you start things cooking! Good luck!

Vegetable Stock Ingredients:

  • 1 TBSP unsalted butter
  • 1 C thinly sliced carrots
  • 1 C coarsely chopped onion
  • 1 C coarsely chopped leeks
  • Kosher salt

Melt the butter in an 8-10 qt stockpot over medium heat. Add the carrots, celery, onions and leeks, season with salt and cover with a parchment lid. Reduce the heat to low and cook very slowly, stirring occasionally 30-35 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Remove and discard the parchment lid.

Dumplings Ingredients:

dicing fresh chives

  • 1/2 C water
  • 4 TBSP unsalted butter
  • 1-1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2/3 C all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 TBSP plus 1 tsp minced chives

Fill a wide deep pot with salted water and bring to a simmer. Set up a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

Combine the water, butter and 1 tsp of salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, add the flour all at once, and stir rapidly with a stiff heatproof or wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and the bottom of the pan is clean.

The dough should be glossy and smooth but still moist; enough moisture must evaporate from the dough to allow it to absorb more fat when the eggs are added. Continue to stir for 4-5 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary to prevent the dough from coloring; a thin coating of dough will form on the bottom of the sides of the pan. When enough moisture has evaporated, steam will rise from the dough and the nutty aroma of cooked flour will be noticeable.

Immediately transfer the dough to the mixer bowl. Add the mustard and the remaining 1/2 tsp salt and mix for a few seconds to incorporate the ingredients and release some of the heat. With the mixer on the lowest speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating until the first egg is completely incorporated before adding the second and incorporating it. Then add the chives and incorporate. Remove the bowl from the mixer.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Shape the dumplings using two soup spoons to make a quenelle shape (see Note), dropping them into the simmering water. Cook the dumplings in batches of about 6 to avoid overcrowding the pot and allow them to cook evenly. Once the dumplings rise to the surface, it will take about 5 minutes for them to cook; remove one and break it open to make sure it is cooked. With a slotted spoon, transfer the dumplings to the baking sheet, and cook the remaining dumplings. You should have about 18 total. Once the dumplings have cooled, trim any uneven edges with scissors.

Chicken Soup Ingredients:

I love the colors in sliced leeks!

  • 4 qts Chicken stock
  • 5 stalks celery
  • 3 large carrots
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 thyme sprigs
  • 1 large garlic clove, crushed, skin left on
  • kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 C (about 4 oz) of roux (see previous post)
  • 2 C cooked, shredded chicken (dark or white meat)
  • 1/2 C minced chives
  • 1 tablespoon (champagne) vinegar
  • flat leaf parsley leaves

Add the chicken stock to the vegetables (under the parchment lid and discard the lid) and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the soup base into another pot and discard the vegetables.

Peel the celery stalks with a peeler. Cut each stalk crosswise on the diagonal into thin slices about 1-1/2 inches long. As you get to the wider lower part of the stalk, adjust the angle of your knife to keep the pieces relatively the same size. You need about 1-1/2 C celery for this recipe. Cook the celery in the large pot of boiling salted water until just tender. Drain, cool in an ice bath and drain again.

Cut the carrots lengthwise into quarters and then crosswise into bite-sized pieces. AS each carrot widens, adjust the size of the cut to keep the pieces bite sized. You need about 1-1/2 C carrots for this recipe.

we get "imperfect" carrots, they are fun to peel!

Put the carrots in a saucepan, add the honey, bay leaf, thyme, garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper, and cover with cold water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the carrots are tender but slightly resistant to the tooth. Drain and transfer to paper towels.

Bring the soup base to a simmer and whisk in the roux a little at a time until thick enough to coat the back fo a spoon; you may not use all the roux. Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming often- this is necessary to remove all impurities from the roux (the soup will continue to thicken as it simmers).

Add the dumplings, chicken, carrots, celery, and chives to the soup and heat through. Season with the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a large serving bowl and sprinkle with parsley leaves.

Makes about 8 cups.

Note:

To form a three-sided quenelle using two soup spoons, start by using one spoon to scoop up a portion of dough that is slightly smaller than the bowl of the spoon. Hold the second spoon in your other hand, place the side of the spoon against the far side of the dough, and scoop it onto the second spoon, forming one smooth long side. Continue transferring the dough between the spoons until you have the desired oval football shape. With practice, this should take no more than three transfers, but it may require more when you are first getting started. Before you begin, set up a container of hot water in which to regularly dip the spoons – this will make it easier to form the quenelles.

My Notes:

Disregard the shape of the dumplings, use the spoons to form one uniform size.

Make the carrots and celery ahead of time.

Melt the leeks into the main soup.

Double the chicken stock to thin out the soup base, if you use all the roux.

I omitted the champagne vinegar because it is singularly the hardest type of vinegar to come across here.