🇺🇸 United States · Pennsylvania Dutch country (Lancaster County)
Chicken corn soup
A Pennsylvania Dutch soup of chicken and sweet corn in a chicken broth, thickened with small egg dumplings called rivels or with egg noodles, often finished with chopped hard-boiled egg.
Origin and history
Chicken corn soup is a comfort food of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Dutch country. A Discover Lancaster article calls it the ultimate comfort food there, eaten in cold weather at the spring mud sales and the fall street fairs, and says the Smucker family has served Grandma Smucker's recipe at the Bird-in-Hand Restaurant for over four decades. Cook's Country finishes its version with rivels, tiny dumplings that resemble German spaetzle, while the Smucker recipe uses noodles. The sources read give no date for its origin.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h
- Hands-on
- 50 min
Ingredients
- 177 g1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, for the rivels
- 2 tbsp minced fresh chives, for the rivels
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten, for the rivels
- 2 large hard-boiled eggs, chopped, to serve
- 4 ears sweet corn, husked; keep the cobs
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 ribs celery, finely chopped
- 2 liters8 cups chicken broth
- 2 bone-in chicken thighs (150 to 200 g each), skin removed
- 1 (300 to 350 g)1 split breast (10 to 12 oz) bone-in chicken breast, skin removed
- 2 tbsp minced fresh parsley
- salt and pepper, about 1 3/4 tsp salt in all, 1/2 tsp pepper
Method
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1. Mix the flour, chives and 3/4 tsp salt, make a well, add the beaten eggs and work into a very firm dough; knead about a minute, cover and rest.
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2. Cut the kernels from 2 ears of corn into a bowl, grate the other 2 ears over the same bowl to catch the juices, and keep all the cobs.
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3. Melt the butter in a Dutch oven and cook the onion and celery with 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper until lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes.
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4. Add the broth, thighs and cobs, bring to a boil, then simmer partly covered 25 minutes.
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5. Add the breast and simmer until it reaches 71 C (160 F), about 20 minutes; take the pot off the heat, discard the cobs and move the chicken to a plate.
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6. Pinch the rested dough into pea-sized bits and drop them into the soup, stir in the corn and its juices, bring to a boil and simmer partly covered on low until the corn is just tender, about 25 minutes, stirring now and then so the rivels do not stick.
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7. Shred the chicken, discarding bones, return it to the pot and heat 3 to 5 minutes; stir in the parsley and adjust the seasoning.
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8. Serve topped with the chopped hard-boiled egg.
Notes
- Quantities follow the Cook's Country recipe (serves 6, about 2 hours). A Bird-in-Hand family recipe from Lancaster County (Grandma Smucker's) simmers a 4 lb stewing chicken in 3 quarts of water with salt, pepper and saffron, then cooks celery, onion and a cup of noodles in the strained broth for 10 minutes and adds a quart of corn for 20 more, with optional chopped hard-boiled egg and parsley; it uses noodles in place of rivels.
- Cook's Country builds the broth on stripped corn cobs, and grates half the corn to release its juice and starch; it insists on fresh corn. Out of season, frozen or canned corn is the fallback (the Lancaster recipe allows them).
- Rivels are tiny pinched dumplings of flour and egg that resemble spaetzle; stir the soup now and then so they do not stick.
Adapted from Cook's Country (America's Test Kitchen), Pennsylvania Dutch Chicken and Corn Soup and Discover Lancaster, Grandma Smucker's Chicken Corn Soup.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.