I have an extra special post for you today.

Close your eyes for a second, and think back to your childhood.  What was that one dish your mom (or dad, or grandparent, or whomever) made that always turned the world right again?  You know the one – it’s the dish you associate with your childhood, your hometown, your entire past, and the dish you want to pass on to your future generations.  It’s the dish that says everything about who you are and where you came from.

If you ask me and each of my sisters what that dish is, we’d give you different answers.  One sister might say my aunt’s sauerkraut and the other may prefer my mom’s sweet potato casserole or mashed potatoes.  For me, it’s my mom’s chicken and dumpling soup.

(Hi, Mom.)

Forget Eastern vs. Western medicine – or any medicine for that matter – because this soup is magical.  It warms you during the one week of the year it’s actually cold in Houston, and also keeps you warm during the other 51 weeks when the AC is turned down too low.  It soothes the tummy and cures any and all viruses, and even helps with the mending of broken bones.  It makes you feel better when you’re in a wheelchair for two months after the scariest accident of your life, and also soothes the incurable heartache brought on by the death of the family pet.

This soup got me through a breakup that otherwise felt like the end of my world, and welcomed me home when I went away to college at UMass.  This soup continues to welcome me home now.  Nothing compares to this soup’s ability to make my distance from home feel ok, because all the nostalgia for my home is in this bowl of soup, and it burns bright and happy like the Texas sun every time I eat it.  It never ceases to make me smile.

Southern comfort at its best, chicken and dumpling soup is a quintessential Southern dish that was perfected by my late German grandmother, and passed down through my mother.  And now that the recipe has been passed down to me, and I’m going to share it with you.

Because it’s special.

And whether you have a dish like that from your childhood, I hope you will at least find this Southern staple warm and comforting in times of both prosperity and need.  And if you don’t have an heirloomable dish of your own, I hope you find one in this.

(The summer my mom, stepdad and Godmother came to visit Ryan and me in the Cape.)

 

Recipe: Mom’s Chicken and Dumpling Soup

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast, cut into 1-inch(ish) cubes
• Olive oil
• Italian seasoning
• Garlic
• Chicken stock
• Carrots
• Celery
• 2 Bay leaves
• Bisquick mix
• Milk
• Salt / pepper

Start by generously seasoning the chicken with salt, pepper and the Italian herbs (or your favorite blend of dried herbs).  Heat oil in a stockpot or dutch oven and add the chicken.  Lightly brown (do not cook through) the chicken over medium-high heat.

Mom cautions that this is when she adds all seasonings for the soup.  By generously seasoning the chicken breasts, they become infused with the flavors while browning, and once the stock is added the flavors are released into the soup.

Add a clove or two of garlic towards the end.  Mom says she uses restraint with garlic in this soup, as it’s already quite rich and tasty.

Once the chicken is properly browned, add the chicken broth (4-6 cans, or 2-3 boxes, depending on your preference).  While that heats through, roughly chop the carrots and celery.

Add the vegetables to the soup.  Notice how the herbs from the chicken are now floating in the broth, infusing it with their delicious and savory flavors.

You want to have enough broth in the pot to cover the vegetables and chicken with enough space left for the dumplings (which puff up quite a bit).  Make sure the broth is very loose, and after adding the vegetables you can adjust by adding more, if need be.

This is about where it should be:

Once you add the vegetables, add the two bay leaves.

Allow the vegetables to boil and soften for about 20-30 minutes.  They should be mostly cooked before adding the dumplings – sturdy, but easily pierced by a fork.

Next, my mom pulled out her secret ingredient.

There are directions on the back for making dumplings, so follow those.  Basically, you add milk to the mix and voila.

While she did this, she told me about how my German grandmother made this for them before Bisquick was around.  Years back, my German family migrated to Texas (Texas has a HUGE German population), and my mom has told me stories about visiting her grandparents on their farm.  They definitely had the farm-to-table mentality, where you dug vegetables from the backyard and ate all parts of the animal.  My grandmother would make her chicken stock and dumplings from scratch, but once those items were available in grocery stores, she started using canned or frozen chicken stock and Bisquick.

My grandmother always professed that it tasted exactly the same.  Sometime I’d like to experiment with making the entire dish from scratch, but somehow I can’t fathom changing this recipe.  It’s too perfect.

Anyway, it was nice to hear my mom talk about her memories of my Nannie.  I barely knew my grandfather, and my grandmother passed away before I was born, and hearing stories about them makes me feel connected.  It’s only natural that it would occur while making the family heirloom soup recipe.

Once the dumplings are all mixed up, you’ll be left with a bowl of sticky, shaggy goop.  It should be wet enough to stick to the bowl, but dry enough that there’s no liquid floating around.

Like this.

Use two spoons to form the dumplings.

Use one spoon to scrape a tablespoon(ish) of batter from the bowl

Use the other spoon to form a ball shape by scraping the batter from the first spoon, and then using the empty spoon to round out the batter.  It’s loose, but this helps to tighten the batter so it doesn’t fall apart upon dropping into the hot liquid.

To drop the dumpling, continue this method over the pot, carefully scraping the ball of dough off the spoon and into the soup.

That’s what it should look like once it’s dropped.  Still not sure how to drop the dumpling?

Here it is again -

See how much they plump up?

Let the dumplings simmer in the soup for about 10 minutes, until they’re nice and plump.  This time also allows the Bisquick to thicken the soup into a nice, rich stew.

Fun fact: Until the day I learned how to make this, I had NO IDEA it wasn’t a cream and butter based soup.

Once you turn off the heat, you’ll be left with this pot of homemade Southern love.

And every spoonful contains this, along with copious amounts of soul.

If home were ever defined by a dish, it’d be this one.  Just looking at pictures of it makes me happy and puts me in touch with my Southern roots.

Maybe winter this year won’t be so bad

 

Question: What’s that one dish from your childhood that encompasses who you are and where you’re from?