As the nights start drawing in, we all start tucking into warming dishes of food. Homemade soups, roast dinners (although we have them all year round), and warm hearty stews begin to appear on everyone’s home dinner menu. Chef Lewis’s Chicken Stew and Dumplings is one of those dishes in Casa L&C. We use the amazing Pasture Poultry chickens at home and in our café in Gifford. Katie is the mastermind behind Pasture Poultry, based in the Scottish Borders, and her chickens, due to their free-range, slow-growing lifestyle and corn-fed diet, are much larger than the chickens most of us are used to. One chicken can easily provide a roast dinner for a family with leftovers. However, we like to break the chicken down to make several meals from the one chook! Check out our instructions on breaking down a chicken, and follow Local Life and us on Instagram for more recipe ideas

Chicken Broth 
2kg chicken carcass or wings 
2 carrots
1 leek (green top)
2 onions
1 stick celery
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
4 peppercorns 
Parsley stalks, sprig thyme and bay leaf
2 chicken legs (no skin)


Place everything except chicken legs into a large saucepan with a pinch of salt, then cover with 2 litres of water. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 2 hours, skimming when needed. 

Put chicken legs into the broth for one hour. When meat is tender, falling off the bone, take it out. Put all the chicken meat into a bowl and place the bones back into the broth to cook for another hour. 

You can miss the additional hour if you feel the stock is full of flavour. Pass through a sieve. The broth will keep in the fridge for a week and three months in the freezer.

Dumplings
100g self-raising flour
50g suet
pinch of salt
cold water to bind

Mix all dry ingredients into a bowl, and add enough cold water to make a firm, pliable soft dough. Divide the mixture into eight balls.

Stew
1 onion
2 potatoes
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
1 leek (white)
1 parsnip
1 small swede
sprig thyme

Peel and dice all vegetables (except potatoes). Add to your warm broth with thyme and cook until tender. Add diced potatoes and cook until nearly cooked through. Add your chicken meat and then your dumplings to boiling broth, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

TOP TIP

Whenever I have chicken bones, I freeze them till I have enough for a batch of stock. You can use straight from the freezer.