Chicken and Dumplings

I was reading Brooke's post about soup and I thought about my favorite soup:  Chicken and Dumplings.  When I started cooking wheat-free I had quite a difficult time making dumplings.  However, I think I have figured it out.  Brooke has it easy and can use Pamela's pancake mix for dumplings, but as I can't tolerate milk I had to figure this out the hard way.  You should note how light and fluffy these dumplings are, which I should point out is almost a miracle. 

1. The first step is to make a great chicken soup. 

A. Boil 4 chicken thighs in a large pot of water.  Add a few bay leaves and let the chicken gently boil for at least 30 mins.  The longer the better.

B. Pull out the chicken thighs and let them cool.  Cut up about 1/2 of the meat and add it back to the pot.  I usually let the chicken cool while I cut up the veggies, which is the next step.

C.  Add lots of cut up vegetables to the pot.  In this particular batch I added 3 potatoes, 2 celery stalks, a cup of fresh parsley, a handful of fresh green beans, a zucchini, and a little bit of eggplant.  I also added about 1/4 cup of green onions.  If you water is getting low, just add more.

D. Flavor the broth with sea salt and garlic powder..

E.  Let the soup get back up to boiling while you prepare the dumplings.

2. The second step is to make the dumplings.

A. In a bowl add 1/2 cup of tapioca flour, 1/2 cup of potato starch, and 1/2 cup of sorghum flour.  Add 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum, 2 tsps of baking powder, and 3/4 tsp of salt.  Mix well.

B.  Add 3 tbs of oil and 3/4 cup of milk (I use almond milk).  Mix lightly.  If it is too wet let it sit for a couple of minutes.  Your dough should look like this.

C. Drop the dough into large walnut sized balls into your boiling pot of soup.  Let the soup and dumplings boil for 10 minutes uncovered.  You need to make sure that your soup has plenty of water.  If it is too thick it might burn while the dumplings cook.

D. Put a lid on your pot and let it continue to boil another 10 minutes.  Don't peek.  When I was a little girl this last 10 minutes would almost kill me, but it is worth the wait.