Grandma’s Acadian Fricot with Dumplings
Cool weather calls for warm, hearty soup. This is an old Acadian recipe passed through generations. It has been slightly modified, but stays true to what fricot is meant to be, a hearty and healthy chicken soup with an abundance of summer savoury and root vegetables.
Ingredients:
Step 1: Broth
| 1 kg | chicken thighs |
| 2 tsp | salt |
| 1/2 tsp | ground savoury |
Directions
- Place chicken thighs in large pot, and cover with water about ¾ of the way up the pot (based on a 7 to 8 litre stockpot.) There should be enough water to cover the chicken completely, and about five inches of water above to submerge vegetables.
- Add salt and savoury to water, stir.
- Boil covered for an hour.
- Remove all pieces of chicken thighs and set aside.
- Remove broth from heat.
Ingredients
Step 2: Soup
| 1 | small rutabaga, coarsely chopped into cubes |
| 6 | carrots, sliced into rounds |
| 10 | small potatoes, coarsely chopped into cubes |
| 1 | large yellow onion, chopped |
| 4 | stalks of celery, chopped |
| 1 | large leek stalk, chopped |
| 1/4 cup | fresh summer savoury, minced |
| 1/2 tsp | ground summer savoury |
| 1 tsp | ground pepper |
*For your vegetables, shop local at Stirling Fruit Farms, Masstown Market, Noggins Corner Farm Market, Uprooted Market & Café, or your closest Farmers’ Market.
Directions
- Bring chicken broth to a boil.
- Add rutabaga and carrot, bring back up to a boil, then 5 minutes later add potato. Boil for 15 minutes. Cover and stir infrequently.
- Add onion, celery, leek, summer savoury and pepper.
- Keep soup at a boil until the rutabaga and potato pieces are cooked, but firm.
- Reduce heat to minimum.
- Chop chicken thighs into bite sized pieces and stir into the soup.
- Keep soup covered on lowest heat.
Ingredients
Step 3: Dumplings
| 1 + 3/4 cup | all purpose flour |
| 1/2 tsp | salt |
| 3 tsp | baking powder |
| 4 tbsp | butter, chilled |
| 3/4 cup | local milk |
Directions
- Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Cut in butter with a pastry cutter until the clumps are the size of large oats.
- Mix in milk with a fork until the dough forms a ball.
- Dust a flat surface liberally with flour, then form small balls of dough with hands (the size of chocolate truffles.)
- Roll each dumpling in the flour, and once all are coated, sprinkle with ground savoury and fresh ground pepper.
- Bring soup to the point that it is hot, but not boiling.
- Place the dumplings on top of the soup, in one layer. Cover and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until dumplings have expanded to at least 3 times their original size.
Recipe provided by: Jessica Emin, @eatwithjessie
Just want to say, each family makes their Fricot different, and yours is no exception! We don’t add rutabaga, leek, or dumplings. I guess we’re boring…but I still love Fricot 🙂
Hi Dominique! Small world. I wrote this recipe and you can be sure my grandmother didn’t put leeks in hers, and only once in a blue moon made dumplings, but the “navet” were always part of it, and part of her mother’s too. I just jazzed it up a bit.
Serait-il possible d’avoir cette recette en Français SVP Merci