Broth Ingredients:
chicken
water
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 Tablespoons parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Dumpling Ingredients:
6 to 8 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. of salt
All-purpose flour, as needed (it will take a few cups)
8 to 10 servings
(None of the measurements have to be exact.)
Broth
Place chicken in stock pot, cover with cold water.
Bring to boil and then simmer for a while, length of time depending on whether you are starting with a raw chicken, raw chicken pieces, or Rotisserie chicken. You want a flavored broth. Rotisserie chicken works great. If the chicken is raw, simmer it a few hours. With raw chicken, you have to skim the scum that collects as the chicken cooks. Then you may want to strain the broth through a sieve or cheese cloth. With a Rotisserie chicken, it’s much easier.
Remove the carcass from the pot onto a pan or tray and cool a bit. Remove meat from the bones.
If there is a lot of fat on the top of the broth, you can chill it (in jars in the frig, or in the pot on the front porch in winter) so the fat will rise to the top and get solid. Remove most but not absolutely all of the fat. Some fat is good for the soup and adds nice flavor. You can
also just skim off some of the liquid fat and discard in the garbage (not down the sink drain).
Taste the broth to see how the flavor is. You can add “Better Than Bouillon” paste to taste, or some other chicken bouillon....be careful because they are salty.
Put the broth in the big pot with the meat from the bird. You may need to add more water. Add celery, carrots, onion, parsley, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
Dumplings
6 to 8 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. of salt
All-purpose flour, as needed (it will take a few cups)
Making the dumplings
Break eggs into a deep bowl. Start by adding about one cup of flour to the beaten eggs. Beat with a fork until smooth. Add another half cup flour and beat that in. Then add flour slowly, a spoonful at a time, beating after each addition. It will get harder and harder to mix up. When it starts to tire my arm stirring, I know I am almost done! The egg and flour mixture should be thick enough to “hold together” in a dumpling shape and not just “melt” into little bits in the boiling broth.
Dip a long-handled, metal spoon into the hot boiling broth to heat the spoon. Then scoop about 2 Tbsp. dough and gently “shake” the dough off the spoon into the boiling broth. If your first dumplings fall apart, add a bit more flour and beat that in. Then try another dumpling test. When the dumplings you put in the broth hold together, your dough is the right thickness. (Dumplings are made of the same ingredients as noodles. To make noodles you add a bit more flour and then roll it out and slice it up and dry it. For dumplings, we take a shortcut and boil up the dough!)
Cover the pot and let the dumplings cook for about 20 to 30 minutes. When you cover the pot, the dumplings swell up. So you need a pot big enough for all this stuff. The dumplings shrink down after a while.
You can reduce the heat a bit, to a simmer or slow boil. Add the chopped parsley ten minutes before the soup is done.
Submitted by Marian Syrjamaki-Kuchta