Chicken stew and dumplings that is a feast for the soul, with its comforting dumplings. Made with homemade chicken bone broth, leftover roast chicken and plenty of veggies. This stew is as wholesome and nourishing as it is comforting.
300grleftover shredded roast chickenor fresh chicken if you don't have leftover
3mediumcarrots
3mediumonions
3celery stalks
30grbutter
3garlic cloves
3tbspplain flour
2-4sprigs of fresh thymeor ½ tsp of dried thyme
salt & pepper to taste
For the dumplings
150grplain flour
65grice-cold buttergrated
70mlmilkor water
½tspbaking powder
salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
You could also make this chicken stew in the slow cooker, in which case you transfer the ingredients to the slow cooker after frying off your ingredients. Then let it cook on high for about 4 hours or double the amount on low. You can add the dumplings in for the last hour, ensuring they have enough room to expand.
The chicken stew
If you've not already done so before, then remove the chicken meat from the bones. I like to roughly chop the leftover chicken meat. I find it helps with two things, firstly it will alert you if you accidentally have one of those tiny thin chicken bones in there. As well as ensuring that all the chicken is in reasonably equal chunks.
If you don't have any leftover chicken, don't worry just throw your raw chicken in your pan when you're frying your onions and brown it then.
Peel or wash your carrots, celery, garlic and onions, then roughly chop them into equal-sized chunks. You don't have to be too fussy. Considering that it is a chicken stew, and it's supposed to be a tad rustic. Although you can mince your garlic if you're not a fan of big pieces of garlic.
In your soup pot or Dutch oven, add a good big knob of butter or a big lug of olive oil if that is your preferred fat. Leave it to warm up before you add in your chopped up onions, sauté until soft and deliciously fragrant. Then add your carrots, celery and garlic and sauté for a couple of minutes to release some extra flavour.
Add your shredded chicken to the pot, a few sprigs of fresh thyme and sprinkle some flour over everything so that everything is coated and give it a good stir.
Slowly add in your chicken bone broth and bring to a boil, then leave to simmer for 30 minutes, after which you can add in the dumplings and leave to simmer for an additional 12 to 15 minutes.
The fluffy dumplings
To a medium-sized bowl add in your flour, baking powder, salt and pepper then give them a quick mix.
Grate in your ice-cold butter, the colder the better. I always use a bar of frozen butter that I keep in the freezer, I find this gives the fluffiest dumplings that I've ever tasted.
Pour in your milk and mix in until you've made a rough dough. Then divide the dough in half until you have 8 bits of roughly equal size dough balls. You can roll them around in your hands until they are somewhat rounder, but again don't be too fussy. After all, a stew is supposed to be on the rustic side.
When the stew has been able to simmer for roughly 30 minutes. And all the veggies are nice and tender, you can add the dumplings. Simply pop them in one by one in a circle with one little dumpling in the middle, and cover them with a lid so that they stay extra toasty.
After about 12 to 15 minutes, the dumplings will have puffed up and become lovely fluffy clouds of dumpling goodness.
Serve with a sprinkling of some fresh herbs like parsley or extra thyme and a good fat slice of homemade sourdough loaf.