Credit Crunch Chef
Our contribution to the culinary arts to prove you don't have to be queer and on £50,000 an hour from the BBC to serve up decent nosh.
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Chicken soup with leeks and dumplings
Food bills are on the rise again but prices in real terms are still nothing like they were at the beginning of the '70s. A kilo of mince at those prices would cost around £20 today. Really ... and the seriously bad news is that if the same economic conditions (stagflation) return today as prevailed then, as does seem possible, then food prices will inevitably head back to the same levels.
Visions of doom are unfounded though. We (I mean the United Kingdom) are actually much more self sufficient in food than is commonly imagined. We produce all the meat, dairy products and vegetables (including especially potatoes) we need and even cereals were it not for the fact that most of our bread is baked with Canadian wheat (more sun, more gluten, more rise). In fact we're about 80% self-sufficient in food. We can get through a bad patch ok no trouble for the forseeable future..
All the same it will be back to basic grub for a while I fancy. This here particular grub takes about 3 hours and serves four. The chicken stock can be prepared the evening before and your total kitchen time, especially if you use your oven on a timer, should be no more than 20 minutes at the very most. It's fine as a main meal served with nice bread and a salad (or dips) if you can be bothered. I suggest a chocolate mousse (out of a packet because raw eggs absolutely out of the question for children salmonella wise) or something similar to follow to appease the more into fish fingers, beans and chips sort children and nothing wrong with that Jamie dear either except that in practice chips have to come from the chippy if they're to be any good (death to oven chips I say) and that's not economical on a regular basis (but once a week fish and chips with mushy peas is very sensible and lucky indeed are children with mums wise enough to know their own minds about what's genuinely good for their own kids and who pay sod all attention to what some over-priced pasty-faced beeb poove thinks is good for your kids not that I'm saying he actually is one mind but ok certainly can't deny poofy bit which is close enough let's face it not that there's anything necessarily all that much wrong with the beeb of course so long as you keep it well away from unsupervised kids what I think anyway so there).
It's basically Scottish Cock-a-leekie soup without the prunes. By all means add a few prunes towards the end if you like but many children and not a few adults (the kind who can't abide bits of tomato skin in their food) will be averse. By averse I mean they no more like strips of them in their soup or stew than most of us like, say, swallowing raw egg so it is a definite unkindness to force them. As a side dish fine though and they do go well with leeks.
You'll need a chicken carcass (for example the remains of a roast chicken) and a couple of leeks for the soup. You can also use a duck carcass as I often do (apricots in that case rather than prunes perhaps though I've never tried).
If you're using a roast chicken carcass remove any decent trimmings and add it to any other meat you've kept over for the soup and put it aside. You won't need to add it to the soup until just before you add the dumplings. Of course you needn't use the meat at all if you don't want to.
Put the carcass (if you feel up to it it's a good idea to break the carcass into two or more bits first with a strong knife - care, the carcass itself can be razor sharp when attacked with a knife) in a stewpan or similar and add a litre of water (tap! but North Wales water might need settling an hour or so first to get the worst of the sheep droppings out - honest, once a month at least here my bath water looks like a rugby team got in there first) or so to cover (roughly cover I mean - don't pour in more than a litre) and bring to the boil. Skim the worst of the scum off but don't worry unduly - it does eventually disappear like soap bubbles and it's all honest to goodness sheep flavour etc. there you're skimming off. You can add a couple of bay leaves and about half a dozen cloves, even a bit of cinammon, at this stage if you fancy it and a crushed clove of garlic or two if you absolutely must. If you're cooking on a hob reduce the heat so that it barely simmers, cover the pan and simmer for a couple of hours. Personally I use the oven at 150º C (medium) on a timer to simmer the stock.
When the two hours are up strain off the liquid and set aside until you're ready to make the soup. Overnight out of the fridge even in the hottest weather is fine (but one night only unless you reheat to simering at least 20 minutes each day - stock is actually quite dangerous for food poisoning). If you absolutely can't abide fat then skim it off now or for a more thorough job chill overnight and remove the thin layer of solidified fat that forms on top the next day (you may well notice the stock has begun to jelly - good news, nice stock). However there will only be a very little fat and I don't bother.
When you're ready to make the soup (cooking time about an hour) put the chicken stock back in the stewpan and heat to simmering on the hob or in the oven (oven is now better as far as the dumplings are concerned). This is also the time to reduce the stock (concentrating the flavour) if you feel you have too much liquid. Simply let it boil vigorously until it's reduced to the level you want - 20 minutes should see it reduce by half if need be. However if you started with no more than a litre of water to begin you shouldn't need to reduce the stock any.
Meanwhile prepare the leeks. You use both the white and green parts and you will need to wash the grit out of them. Fill a basin or the kitchen sink with cold water. Cut the root of the leeks away (only a very small amount needs to be cut away) and then slice the leek into say quarter inch thick rounds. You need to be quite firm with your vegetable knife to separate the rounds completely.
Tip the rounds into the cold water and swirl them about a while and then leave to rest for 5 minutes. This will wash the worst of the grit out and any remaining dirt you can safely ignore (it won't give you food poisoning or anything). Obvious bits of shit can be scraped away with a finger nail up to you but we hauter than thou chefs know well enough to leave strictly alone in the search for that fuller rounder flavour only discerning mums ever really manage.
By this time the chicken stock should be simmering and you can scoop up the rounds of leeks with a strainer and transfer them to the stock. If you want to add whole pepper-corns for flavour add them now (a dozen at most say) but otherwise there's no need to season yet.
Simmer the soup for an hour either on the hob or better I think in the oven at 150º C.
20 minutes before the end add any meat you kept back (mini meat balls, even frankfurters hell why not entirely what you fancy up to you, from a tin is another possibility) and the prunes if you're using them (about 8 perhaps cut into strips), season to taste and then add the dumplings you have prepared.
To make the dumplings you will need self-raising flour and suet. You need self-raising flour so the dumplings rise and are nice and light. Suet is the fat found around the kidneys in beef or lamb and is highly prized in France especially in Normandy where it used in their potted meats. It's also used by their hautest chefs for deep frying - chips fried in suet fat are said to be delectable (as they are indeed done in humbler beef dripping and no I didn't say it was healthier). Over here we use it for dumplings and puddings and it comes pre-prepared rolled in flour for convenience (thus don't try tipping it into your deep fyer to see what chips are like fried in it - you will need to reserve suet for that at your local butcher and be prepared for quite a lot of hassle clarifying it). The brand leader is Atora and they have a website here with recipe ideas but curiously no dumpling recipe (side of pack instead). The following will make 8 medium sized dumplings.
The two golden rules for simmering dumplings is 1 never use actually boiling liquid - it should never be anything more than a gentle simmer 2 once in place don't touch them at any price until ready for serving.
Failure to oberve either rule to the letter will mean they will probably break up and turn your soup or stew into a very sorry looking mess indeed. Ignore recipes which say boiling water - they don't know what they're talking about honest.
It takes no more than five minutes to prepare dumplings so you reach this stage about 25 minutes before serving. Don't prepare them in advance because they will start to rise and will then break apart when added to the soup.
As in all baking, even if you're very experienced, you should best weigh everything. You need four ounces of flour and two of suet. If you don't have scales then you should use two tablespoons of flour heaped as high as you can and two ordinary tablespoons (i.e. a bit rounded just as they come out of the pack without necessarily trying to heap them very high) of suet as approximate measure.
Finally on your working surface heap a tablespoon or so pyramid of flour - this is for rolling the dumplings in and make sure you have enough since it's a bother tipping out extra flour with doughy fingers. Incidentally most of this flour won't (and shouldn't) be used and gets thrown away but you do need a fair bit in the first place to roll the dumplings in.
In a reasonable size bowl (big enough to get at least one hand comfortably in) mix the flour and suet together. There's no need to try to 'rub' the suet into the flour, just mix together lightly. Add salt (certainly a little salt needed) and pepper as you fancy and you can also add a herb or two depending on what you've already seasoned the stock with. I like adding a couple of level teaspoons of oregano (the 'pizza' herb though in fact that should be basil all along). Give the mix a final swirl around to incorporate these.
Now add exactly five level tablespoons of cold water, one after the other without trying to mix or worrying how much water you're adding until the end. Finaly stir in lightly but thoroughly with a spoon and you should end up with a rather sticky dough in one piece that just about holds together. Sticky is better than dry and the very hautest chefs go for a mixture so sticky you can only handle it with spoons but we'll content ourselves with a slightly sticky one we can still use our hands on. Whatever you do don't try to knead this dough as you do bread dough. Just bring it together in one piece as lightly as you can and don't worry about the state of your hands. This dough incidentally won't be a smooth paste but rather a sort of knobbly paste because of the bits of suet in it. That's how it should be.
If something goes wrong and you end up with a mess you can't handle or looks too dry to rise nicely then just throw it away and start again for heaven's sake. It's only a bit of flour and fat we're talking here.
Use about half your pyramid of flour on your working surface to dust a saucer sized space and dump your dough onto that. Cut it in two with a knife, and then each half in two and similarly in two again to make eight small roughly equal sized sticky bits of dough. Pick up each one very lightly, shape gently to a ball with your increasingly sticky fingers and gently roll it in the remaining flour to dust it (this is important to help keep its shape as you handle it when you add it to the soup).
Wash you hands and take the lid off your soup. Add any meat, prunes, seasoning and other garnishes as already described, give it a stir and then add the dumplings one by one handling them as lightly as you can. They won't sink very far into the soup, probably not even half way. Don't try to poke them down further and in fact (rule 2) don't touch them at all once in the pot. If you think you've got a couple too close together then too bad, it will come out right in the end trust me. If you think you haven't got enough liquid don't worry about that either - you've got plenty and they cook in the steam anyway.
Finally put the lid back on and simmer for the remaining 20 minutes. No need to check progress, don't lift the lid for best results.
When you do lift the lid you should see eight perfectly risen medium size dumplings taking up most of the space (in area I mean) at the top.
Serve and enjoy!
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