Chicken Soup with Dumplings- May 9

What is it about chicken soup that makes me feel so comfortable? Just thinking about inhaling a big whiff then swallowing a spoonful of the stuff makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

A good chicken soup should be in every home cook's arsenal...and it was my time to learn to make one. I had tried Keller's chicken soup at Bouchon Bakery before and knew that his chicken soup recipe is the one that I wanted to make my own.

So when Hunter and I set out to make our own chicken soup, we decided that we'd do it right. We'd start by making the stock from scratch rather than using canned broth. Chicken bones, cold water, carrots, onion, and leek stewing together for about an hour and our kitchen smelled like home.

The next day we finished the soup with more veggies and then a little roux to thicken the soup and add some creaminess. While the soup simmered away, Hunter set out to make the dumplings.

The first attempt to make the dough turned out to be a bit more challenging than anticipated. The result was a watery, clumpy mess. So we tossed it out and tried again. We're not really sure what we did differently the second time, but boy did it look great!

The dumplings went into the soup along with the shredded chicken and voila! Delicious, creamy, soul-warming chicken soup! Phil was so blown away, he shed a single tear of happiness.

To complete the meal, we decided to take a stab at our first Thomas Keller dessert: Apple Fritters.

 

The batter was simple and prepping the apples took no time at all. We dropped our matchsticks of apples into the batter, and then into the hot oil. They browned up nicely, but were still a little soggy. I think we need a proper thermometer to make sure our oil isn't too hot. Anyways, at least they looked pretty.

Just for fun, we decided to try frying up some girl scout cookies we had in the kitchen.

tagalongs & thin mints

this is why you're fat. yum.

Yuck or Yum
-Chicken Soup with Dumplings:
d-"Glorious. So good and really incredible how little salt went into it. I'm ready to make it my own recipe."
h-"Chicken soup exceeded my taste expectations as did the dumplings. I think a higher dumpling to soup ratio would be good, but that's just me. All in all, very tasty combination."
p-"The dumplings were tender and fantastic. I thought they might either (x) chewy or (y) uncooked, but in fact they were simply delicious. The soup was also perfectly salted I thought. The addition of the pre-cooked rotiserrie chicken made complete sense (I am kind of in love with those)."
r-"The soup has an almost gravy like viscosity. When eaten with the toasted baguette, felt like a deconstructed chicken pot pie. Amazing!!!!"
-Apple Fritters:
d-"They looked great and tasted great but lacked the crispiness I was hoping for. Next time we'll have to get a proper oil thermometer to make sure our oil is the right temp."
h-"I don't know if the oil needs to be hotter, if they need to be cooked longer, or if they need some post-oil toasting in the oven, but they could definitely be a bit crispier. It didn't help their cause either that they were upstaged by the impromptu appearance of Thin Mints and Tagalongs. Those sorta stole the show."
p-"As far as stand alone "fritter" is concerned, they were soggy and slightly bland. As far as being warm apples that you might expect to find in an apple pie, they were pretty damn good. And since we ate them in a bowl of ice cream, they were pretty damn good."
r-"I think the batter could have used some added sugar and spice(maybe cinnamon?). Also needed to really fry the apples quite a bit to get the crispy outer shell. Frying girl scout cookies in the same batter was a great bonus prize!"