Chicken and dumplings define comfort food at my house.
I have always loved dumplings and have fond memories as a child going to Morrison’s Cafeteria after church on Sunday with my parents and my great-aunt Grace and great-uncle Otis and ordering my favorite meal. Or coming home at noon from Berry's Chapel kindergarten and my momma would have opened a can of Sweet Sue dumplings for us to share while watching Marlo Thomas in a comedy called “That Girl.”
Making homemade chicken and dumplings is a labor of love and one I don’t do often. I love to cook, but this recipe takes time. It’s much easier to open a can of Sweet Sue. But if you have the time and plan to feed an army, this is the recipe for you.
The entire lot of delicious, plump heaven-in-a-stew-pot costs about $5 to make. You really only need one whole fryer and one small bag of self-rising flour. Since starting the "A Better Me" Challenge I've learned I still like to cook foods that I choose not to eat.
This meal is earmarked for my cousin's dining table. Keep in mind the key to great dumplings is a great broth. Rinse your chicken and remove bag of giblets from the cavity. Place chicken in your dutch oven and cover with water.
Set on your stove and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce heat to medium and cook until tender, about an hour. You can also enhance the flavor of your broth by adding carrots, celery, onion or dried onion, garlic, salt and pepper. You can also add the giblets, but never the liver. It can make the broth bitter. Personally, I discard them or save them for giblet gravy.
When chicken is tender and falling off the bone, remove it from the broth and set on a plate to cool. Remove the broth from the heat and allow it to cool.
At this point you can refrigerate both chicken and broth overnight and continue with recipe in the morning. If not, allow plenty of time for both to cool.
When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove skin and bone and collect pieces of meat on a separate dish. I also keep a third dish close by to place less desirable meat for my furbabies.
Note: Do not give your dogs the chicken bones. They can splinter and injure your dog. Throw away chicken carcass in a plastic bag that is tied before throwing into the outdoor trash receptacle.
Cooled broth will have a layer of fat floating on the top. With a large spoon, skim off all visible fat and discard. Pour into a mixing bowl enough broth to make your dumplings. Return broth to cleaned dutch oven and bring to rolling boil. Dumpling ratios: 1 cup self-rising flour to ½ cup broth OR 1 cup plain flour, 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder, and ½ teaspoon salt to ½ cup broth. Multiply this by how many dumplings you would like to make. I usually use 3-4 cups flour to 1 ½-2 cups broth.
Work into a dough, but don’t overwork it. The dumplings will be tough.
Generously flour your rolling surface and take half of the dumpling dough to roll to a ¼ inch thickness.
Slice into 1 inch strips and tear strips into dumplings as you drop them in the boiling broth. Continue until all the dough is rolled, cut and dropped into the boiling broth. The excess flour on the dumplings should be enough to thicken the broth into a gravy consistency.
Reduce heat.
Add chicken and stir. Continue to cook over low heat until all the dumplings are thoroughly cooked and the flavors marry. The liquid will reduce, too, and turn the broth into a thick stew.
Ladle into bowls and serve. Yum-O! Pin It
