Gluten-free chicken and dumplings is rich with broth, fresh herbs and aromatic vegetables, for a bit of variation, consider omitting bacon and adding two cups chopped wild mushrooms – any will do, but I’m particularly fond of chanterelles in this dish.
Stir brown rice flour, sorghum flour, almond meal, buckwheat and tapioca flour together, then pour buttermilk into the flour and stir the mixture together until it resembles cornmeal. Set it aside, covered, for about eight hours or overnight.
After the dumpling dough has soaked overnight or about eight hours in buttermilk, mix remaining ingredients into the dough and form the dough by hand into balls about one-half to thee-quarters inch in diameter. Set them aside while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
finishing the soup:
Melt two tablespoons butter in a heavy-bottomed soup pot, then add four ounces chopped bacon to the pot and cook it through. Remove the bacon from the pot and set it aside.
Toss chopped onion, celery and carrots into the pot and cook them until they become tender and fragrant, then add chopped chicken to the pot and cook for three to five minutes.
Pour in 1 ½ to 2 quarts fresh chicken broth into the pot and simmer the soup for ten minutes, covered.
Reduce the heat to medium-low, uncover the soup pot, add 1 cup fresh or frozen English peas into the soup and drop formed dumplings, no more than three-quarters inch in diameter, into the pot. Cover the pot again and allow the dumplings to cook undisturbed for eight to ten minutes.
After eight to ten minutes, uncover the pot and stir in fresh minced herbs and reserved bacon.