Grandma's Chicken and Dumpling Soup

WiGal's Note:

Another TOH favorite. This is time consuming but wonderful and sometimes it's nice to just slow down and stay inside! Notice that I have not included the cooling time for the chicken.

• Total Time: 4 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 4 hrs 10 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 10

• 3 lbs roasting chickens, cut up
• 6 cups cold water
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• 6 peppercorns
• 3 whole cloves
• 10 3/4 ounces chicken broth
• 10 3/4 ounces cream of chicken soup
• 10 3/4 ounces cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups carrots, chopped
• 1/4 cup onion, chopped
• 1 cup potato, chopped
• 1 small bay leaf
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 2 teaspoons salt, DIVIDED
• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2/3 cup milk

Directions:

1. Place chicken, water, bouillon, peppercorns, and cloves in kettle and bring to a boil.
2. Later you must remove the cloves.
3. Reduce heat; simmer until chicken is tender (about 1 hour).
4. Cool chicken just slightly; cut into bite size pieces and set aside and look for the cloves.
5. Strain and skim the chicken broth.
6. Put the reserved chicken and strained broth in a large kettle; add cans of broth, chicken and mushroom soups, celery, carrots, onion, potatoes, bay leaf, peas, and one teaspoon of salt.
7. Put cover onto kettle; simmer soup on low heat for 2-3 hours, or until the vegetables are tender.
8. About 30 minutes before serving, mix up dumplings by putting flour, one teaspoon salt, baking powder, and pepper together in a medium bowl.
9. Add egg, melted butter, and enough milk to make moist, stiff batter.
10. Drop by teaspoons into boiling liquid.
11. Cook, covered and without "peeking", for 18-20 minutes or until the dumplings are done.

Reviews

[CAREBEARCOOKING]

The night before, I cooked up a whole fryer. Then I consulted the recipe. Unfortunately, I did not use the cloves or peppercorns at all. This was still an awesome recipe. Keep in mind that small dumplings do expand when cooking! Great flavor and we froze the rest......hope it freezes ok.

[PanNan]

This was on the stove a good portion of the day, today and made the house smell wonderful. I've never put cloves in my chicken stock or soup recipes, but we loved the flavor of this soup. Delicious! Made for photo tag.

[bad kitty 1116]

I have this recipe in TOH's Big Book of Soup. It's a little different than what's posted here, but this is the greatest soup and is fun to prepare. My recipe calls for 4 pounds chicken, 9 cups water, 5 chicken bouillon cubes, no can of chicken broth,1-1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt, an additional 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and 3/4 to 1 cup milk and the optional parsley for a pretty garnish.I add minced garlic in with the vegetables,2 cloves.The simmering time for the vegetables to get tender only needs to be 1 hour. I add a pinch of sugar to my dumplings also-I love this recipe!