I don’t suppose this counts as a Ribollita as it’s usually a vegetarian dish. But chicken, beans and cabbage didn’t sound great as a title so I went for Ribollita, as this recipe is based on that wonderful Italian soup. I’ve taken out the bread as it’s not a great choice for me due to a mild wheat allergy, and added in dumplings for Molly and Julian.
With these tweaks we ended up with a wonderful, flavoursome soup that was warming and filling on a cold, rainy day. Perfect one pot supper for a hungry family. I made the whole thing from scratch, but you can use cooked chicken and prepared stock if you have them handy.
Free from: dairy, eggs, celery, mustard
Contains: Gluten in the dumplings – omit if you want gluten free.
Chicken Ribollita (Sorta)
This is a warm, wonderful supper dish made all the more comforting by the addition of dumplings. Free from: dairy, eggs, celery, mustard
- March 22, 2019
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Ingredients
- 1 chicken if you fancy having some leftover chicken meat for pasta sauce, otherwise ½ chicken. The water covering the chicken will make the stock – if you are using premade stock then you’ll need 1 ½ pints.
- 1 1/2 onions
- 11 garlic cloves
- 2 carrots
- 200g sliced cabbage or cavolo nero
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 1 can of cannellini beans or haricot beans if you prefer
- Olive oil
Directions
- Step 1
- Grab the chicken and put it in a pot covered with water. Cut up and add in 1 carrot, 1 onion and 8 garlic cloves. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the heat up to simmering point and leave for 45 minutes to an hour, checking a couple of times to make sure everything is bubbling away nicely and to skim any froth from the top. Check the chicken is cooked by poking the thighs to make sure the juices run clear.
- Step 2
- Take out the chicken and leave to cool, Leave the broth in the pan. Strip the chicken of the meat. Add the bones back into the broth and bring back to the boil. Cover and boil for 2 hours. You will end up with a thick, garlicky broth which will give amazing flavour to the soup. If using prepared stock then add in the garlic and simmer for 20 minutes to add the flavour.
- Step 3
- Dice up the remaining carrot and half onion. Add to a casserole dish and fry gently for about 15 minutes in the olive oil. Add in the beans, the chicken (I used half of the chicken meat from a whole chicken), 3 cloves of garlic, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Blanch the cabbage and add into the casserole. Bring up to simmering point on the top of the oven.
- Step 4
- Pop the dumplings on top of the casserole and put into the hot oven for 20 minutes, or until the dumplings are brown on top and cooked through – they puff up a bit – you will be able to tell.
- Step 5
- If you aren’t doing dumplings then simmer the soup for about 20 minutes and serve. It is wonderful the next day as well.
