Chicken Soup With Grits Dumplings
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It's so cold these days that I thought of a remake of my daughter's favourite soup, perfect for the winter time, real comfort food: chicken soup with grits dumplings. You are, of course, more than welcome to replace chicken with vegetable soup, but I have absolutely no idea how that might work, because to me these dumplings are always associated with chicken soup. However, chicken stock can be successfully substituted for beef stock, but the first remains my preferred version.
I would normally use chicken backs and necks to make the chicken stock. Well, there was no sign of those at my local grocery store, so being this cold outside, I decided to stop fussing around and use bone-in, skin-on thighs instead, then add the cooked meat in the soup at the end.
So, I heated 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pot, then I added the thighs skin side down. Get 2 large eggs and 2 tablespoons of butter out of the fridge because they need to get at room temperature.
I let them cook for about 5 minutes on each side, then I added 1 sliced carrot, 2 chopped celery stalks and 1/2 chopped parsley root, salt and pepper to taste, then allowed them to soften a bit.
I poured in 1 quart of water and 1 quart of chicken stock, lowered the heat and let it reach the boiling point
Now, remember the eggs and butter you took out of the fridge? Well, it's time to make some dumplings! Cream the softened butter, beat the eggs with a pinch of salt, then combine the two. Add the grits, one tablespoon at the time, until the composition resembles a not very thick sour cream - about 6 tablespoons of grits. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.
Now lower the heat, get the meat out of the soup and reserve. Using a dessert spoon, form dumplings and drop them into the soup (I found that the best method is to submerge the spoon into the hot soup).
Continue until the grits composition is finished, then cover the pot and let it simmer for 30 minutes or until the dumplings are cooked.
Shred the chicken meat (after removing the skin) and put it back in the pot to warm up, maybe 5 minutes. Add some chopped fresh parsley and turn off the heat. That's all!
After already having had dinner, my daughter wanted one ladle of soup and one dumpling (I told you this soup is her favourite!), so that's a sectioned dumpling for you. Enjoy!
