Chicken and Mushroom Soup

Chicken and Mushroom Soup with Cornbread Dumplings Recipe

Chicken drummettes add protein to this vegetable mushroom soup. Canned cornbread (available in the refrigerated case by the canned biscuits) makes easy dumplings. Feel free to mix and match your favorite mushrooms for variation.

Prep Time: :15

Cook Time: 1:

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups fresh or frozen chopped onions (about 2 medium-large yellow onions)
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 cup thinly sliced celery (include some leaves)
• 1 cup peeled baby-cut fresh carrots, sliced 1/2 inch thick
• Half of an 8-ounce package sliced fresh white mushrooms
• 2 Tablespoons duxelles mushroom paste (see recipe link below)
• 1 large whole bay leaf
• 2 (3-inch) sprigs fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
• 1 pound chicken drummettes
• 2 (14-1/2-ounce) cans chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup frozen whole-kernel corn (do not thaw)
• Half of an 11-1/2-ounce tube refrigerated cornbread twists
• 1/3 cup minced parsley

Preparation:

Heat oil in medium-size Dutch oven over moderately high heat 2 minutes. Add onions, garlic, celery, carrots, mushrooms, duxelles if desired, bay leaf, and thyme and turn to coat with oil. Add chicken, reduce heat to moderate, cover, and "sweat" 15 minutes, stirring now and then.

Add broth, salt, pepper, and corn; adjust heat so mixture bubbles gently, cover and cook until flavors marry, 15 to 20 minutes. Skim off excess fat, if any. Taste for salt and pepper and fine-tune as needed.

Uncoil strips of cornbread dough and with scissors, snip crosswise at 1-1/4-inch intervals. Bring soup to a rapid boil, then drop in pieces of cornbread dough, spacing evenly so they don't touch. Adjust heat so soup bubbles gently, cover, and cook 10 minutes -- no peeking!

Remove bay leaf, then mix in parsley, taking care not to damage dumplings. Ladle soup into heated large soup plates and serve.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

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