Melbourne Recipe Club

Semolina Dumplings in Chicken Broth (Forgotten Ingredient) October 9, 2011

Comfort food at its best! Simple but tasty. Ideal for winter or for someone who’s feeling under the weather. Makes enough dumplings for between 8 and 12 soup servings, depending on how many dumplings you want in each serve. I served it with 4 dumplings each but 3 would have been fine, too. The dumpling recipe is a mixture of several I found on the internet.

Make the stock a day ahead (ideally – I made it on the day but only just got it finished in time). Start making the dumplings about 10 minutes before serving time.

Broth

Use a good chicken stock recipe to make at least 4 litres of stock. I used a variation of Poh’s recipe. I left out the mushrooms because I forgot to buy them, used a whole chicken plus 6 extra wings because I was too lazy to go to the butcher to get carcasses, forgot to put peppercorns in, and added rosemary to the herbs. I used a huge stock pot and probably had 6 litres of liquid before reducing it.

After removing as much of the fat from the surface as possible and straining the finished liquid through a very fine sieve or cloth (cheesecloth or several layers of muslin), return to stove and reduce by 1/3. Season to taste – I added quite a bit of salt to mine, even though I rarely use it, so make sure you taste it! For a really clear broth, you can clarify the stock (but this will add several hours of preparation time so I didn’t do this. I want to try it out sometime, though!)

Ingredients (for dumplings)

• 330ml milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup semolina
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 carrot, peeled, cut into short, fat matchsticks
• 1 parsnip, peeled, cut the same as the carrot
• 2 lemons, cut into wedges

Method

1. Bring the milk, butter, nutmeg and salt to boil over a moderate heat. Add the semolina and stir until the semolina forms a ball and starts to come away from the sides of the saucepan (almost immediately). Transfer to a bowl and add the parmesan, herbs and egg and stir firmly until the mixture is smooth. The lumps will smooth out with vigorous stirring.
2. While you return the broth to a simmer, make balls of dumpling mixture by rolling in your wet hands to about an inch in diameter. Place on non-stick paper and continue until all dumpling mixture has been used.
3. Carefully put dumplings into simmering broth, along with carrot and parsnip. Cover and allow to cook for approximately 4 to 5 minutes, or until the dumplings float. Turn off the heat and allow to stand for a few minutes, giving the dumplings time to swell a little more.
4. Serve with lemon wedges – these gave the broth a bit of extra zing which I thought was delicious.