Boiling water without burning it

You can turn a brothy, thin soup into more of a meal very easily by adding dumplings that cook right in the soup. You can start the whole process about 20 minutes before serving. This recipe should make 6 to 9 moist, firm dumplings and is based on the recipe from Rombauer and Rombauer-Becker's The Joy of Cooking.

For starters, ensure that you are making your soup in a pot with a tight-fitting lid, or that you have something you can place on top of the pot that fits fairly tightly — the idea is that the upper parts of the dumplings get cooked by steaming.

Sift together into a mixing bowl: 1 cup flour (all-purpose will do, cake flour will make the dumplings a little fluffier), 2 teaspoons baking powder, a pinch of salt

Add and stir in extras: A little grated parmesan or cheddar, a teaspoon of dry rosemary and/or a clove of garlic finely chopped up are all nice additions that I have tried.

In a measuring cup: Crack an egg in the cup, then top up with milk to the half-cup line. Beat a bit with a fork (to the point where the yolk is broken and starting to mix in with the milk), then add bit by bit to the batter, stirring well with a spoon in between additions. The resulting batter should be stiff and sticky.

Add the dumplings to the soup: Make sure your soup is at a simmer (slight bubbly movement of the soup, but not a big frothy boil). Scrape off your spoon, and dip it in the soup. Get a spoonful of batter and drop it in to the soup. Re-dip (to keep the batter from sticking to the spoon) and repeat, trying to drop blobs of batter in the soup so that they are close but not touching. When all your dumpings are in, cover the pot and wait for five minutes. Uncover and use a spoon to flip the dumplings in the soup. If the soup is boiling too hard or not simmering at all, adjust the heat. Re-cover and wait five more minutes. Serve ASAP.