Bear N Mom Recipes - Chicken Dumpling Soup

Another hearty soup is this one made with chicken and dumplings. It's an art to make good soup. As Nunny says, "Try it -- You'll Like It."

Ingredients

• 1 small stewing chicken
• 2-3 carrots
• 2-3 celery stocks
• salt and pepper to taste

bay leaf (to be removed once the stock is done)

Fill a stewing pot with water and add whole chicken, whole cleaned carrots and celery stocks. Bring to a boil and then turn down heat to medium and simmer for 2 hours. The bones and skin will fall of the meat and you will need to sieve the soup with cheese clothe and remove the bones. Let the water cool and skim the chicken fat out of the water. Dice chicken meat, carrots and celery. Turn heat to medium and add chicken, carrots, celery, seasonings to stock.

Heat soup for another 1/2 hour

Dumplings

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water
• pinch of salt

Prepare your dumplings. Mix flour, water and salt to a paste consistency. Hand roll your dumplings, the smaller the better. They will puff up in the soup.

Just prior to serving drop dumplings into soup and let simmer until they rise to the top.

TIPS

You can use prepared soup base to get your flavor and whole, deboned chicken breasts to attain the same flavor and cut the cooking time to a minimum. You will still need to skim the chicken fat from the stock but there will be less fat if you trimmed the chicken.

If you have leftover stock -- freeze for use as a starter for your next chicken recipe.