Chicken Stew with Dumplings

The week after the birthday. Meghan gave birth on Monday—a boy, born at two in the morning, six pounds fifteen ounces, healthy, name to be announced. Cormac texted me at two-forty-eight AM: "Meg and baby both great." I was awake because I was on overnight and I read the text in the break room at MGH and felt the same crack of relief I felt when Liam was born, the animal glad that someone you love came through safely. I texted back: "Tell her she's incredible." He texted: "She knows." She does.

They named him Aidan Patrick Shea and he is, per the photos, spectacular in the way all newborns are spectacular: red-faced, enormous-seeming in that paradoxical way where very small things look complete, everything present and accounted for. Meghan texted me a photo at five AM with the caption "he looks like Cormac but I did all the work." She looks exhausted and beautiful and like herself.

I made her soup. The same chicken noodle I made when she was in the first trimester, because it was the thing she could eat then and because soup at the beginning of something is a language I know how to speak. Sean drove it over Tuesday evening while I worked. He texted me when he delivered it: "She cried when I handed it to her." Postpartum hormones. Also: soup.

April arrived with mild weather and the whole city feeling like it exhaled. Liam ran across the Public Garden on Sunday with the freedom of a person who has been walking for three months and is finally fully confident in the technology.

I’ve made Meghan soup twice now — once when morning sickness had her surviving on broth and saltines, and again the Tuesday after Aidan arrived, still warm in the container when Sean handed it through her door. I reach for this chicken stew with dumplings the way other people reach for flowers: it’s the thing I know how to give. The dumplings make it more substantial than a basic broth, which matters when someone is nursing a six-pound-fifteen-ounce person at two in the morning and needs something that actually sticks.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
3 stalks celery, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup frozen peas
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 bay leaf
Salt and black pepper to taste
For the dumplings:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

Brown the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper, then cook until lightly browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Sauté the vegetables. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, carrots, and celery to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Build the stew. Return chicken to the pot. Pour in chicken broth, add thyme and bay leaf, and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and vegetables are tender.
Add the peas. Stir in frozen peas. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Make the dumpling batter. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add milk, melted butter, and parsley and stir just until a shaggy dough forms — do not overmix.
Drop the dumplings. With the stew at a gentle simmer, drop heaping tablespoons of batter onto the surface of the stew, spacing them slightly apart. You should get about 12 dumplings.
Steam and serve. Cover the pot tightly and cook without lifting the lid for 15 minutes, until dumplings are cooked through and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve immediately, ladling stew and dumplings together into bowls.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Stew with Dumplings — The Soup I Make When Someone I Love Needs It