Chicken soup with ricotta dumplings.
I poached a whole chicken last night, then broke it down for broth and meat: dumped it in a pot of water with carrot, onion, garlic, and other aromatics, simmered for about 2 hours, then stripped all the meat off the bones. I put the bones back into the broth and simmered that down for another 90 minutes, drained it, and saved the broth: half in the freezer, half in the fridge for today’s soup base.
For the soup, I chopped up half an onion, a couple of carrots, and three cloves of garlic, sauteed all that in a bit of butter and olive oil until soft, then stirred in the chicken broth, half the meat, and about a tablespoon of tomato paste (plus seasonings: salt, pepper, oregano, a bit of crushed red pepper, and dill).
I’ve been experimenting with ricotta gnocchi/dumplings (gnudi?), and these were pretty good. Half a cup each of fresh ricotta and Parmesan, one egg, salt, pepper, lemon zest. Then add in about 1/4-1/3 cup flour until the dough is workable but still sticky. Spoon off the dough into teaspoon-sized dumplings, and drop into the soup. Simmer until the dumplings rise to the top. Serve with fresh-chopped parsley and grated Parmesan.
