The Hungry Canary

Adapted from Ideals Family Cookbook · Martha Cramer

Chicken Corn Soup with Rivvels

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Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken
  • Water, enough to cover chicken
  • 1 cup diced fennel bulb (replaces 1 large diced onion)
  • 1 stalk celery, diced
  • 3 hard-cooked eggs, diced
  • Whole-kernel corn, to taste (author suggests 1 bag frozen corn when fresh is unavailable)
  • For the rivvels: 2 cups sorghum flour (replaces wheat flour)
  • 1 egg, for rivvels
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

  1. Cut up the chicken, put it in a large stockpot, and add enough water to cover. Cook gently until the meat is cooked through and tender (at least 165°F in the thickest parts).
  2. Remove chicken from the broth. Once cool enough to handle, remove bones, finely chop the meat and return it to the broth.
  3. Add diced fennel, celery, hard-cooked eggs and as much corn as desired. Simmer until the vegetables and corn are tender.
  4. To make rivvels, stir together the sorghum flour, egg, salt and pepper until a crumbly mixture forms. Sorghum has no gluten, so the texture may need testing; add only a few drops of water if necessary to form small crumbs.
  5. Sprinkle the rivvels gradually into simmering broth while stirring gently, so they cook as separate little dumplings rather than a single lump.
  6. Simmer about 15 minutes more, until the rivvels are cooked through. Serve hot; the original author notes the flavor improves on reheating.

Cookbook attribution

“Chicken Corn Soup,” contributed by Martha Cramer to the Ideals Family Cookbook. The original cooks a whole chicken in water, returns chopped meat to the broth, then adds a large diced onion, diced celery, three diced hard-cooked eggs, and fresh or frozen whole-kernel corn. Small “rivvels” are made from two cups wheat flour, one egg, salt and pepper, and simmered in the soup for approximately 15 minutes. Martha notes that the soup can simmer longer and seems to improve when reheated.

Hungry Canary substitutions

Onion: one cup of diced fennel bulb substitutes for the large diced onion; the soup already contains celery. Rivvels: sorghum flour replaces wheat flour in the original two-cup quantity as an untested starting point. Sorghum does not form the same gluten structure as wheat, so make a small trial portion first and adjust the texture if the crumbs dissolve in broth. The original amounts remain documented above.

Serving and storage

Because this is a poultry soup, cool leftovers promptly in shallow containers and refrigerate. Reheat thoroughly to 165°F. The cooked eggs are incorporated as dictated, even though they are unusual in some modern chicken soups.