Fricot
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Fricot
What, you may ask, in the world is fricot? Fricot is a traditional Acadian dish. As a most basic explanation, Fricot is a chicken, beef, or wild game, soup with diced potatoes and grated potato dumplings. Like any soup, this one begins with a broth. Fricot is generally made with chicken, but any meat will do. The meat is boiled in water, butter, salt, pepper, onions and salted green onions if available. This last ingredient is unique to the Acadian culture. The meat is removed and taken apart into bite size pieces. It is then returned to the broth. Raw diced potatoes are added to the broth.
As the soup simmers, more potatoes are peeled but this time they are grated and the juice is extracted from them by means of wrapping them in a piece of cheesecloth or a cotton pillowcase and squeezing out the juice. The juice is discarded and the grated potatoes are put into a bowl. Bring the soup to a rolling boil and add some of the boiling hot broth to the grated potatoes while constantly stirring them. Once there is a paste-like consistency to the potato mixture, lower the temperature of the soup to a simmer. Gently spoon out the potato mixture in fist sized blobs on the top of the soup.
Cover the Fricot and let simmer until the dumplings are tender but intact. Do not stir the fricot after the dumplings have been added or they will sink to the bottom or fall apart.
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