Chicken and Dumplings

Let's just be clear... I love chicken and dumplings. I grew up getting these on special occasions, specifically, when we would come "home" to Alabama to visit my mom's family. My Aunt Reba, my grandmother's sister, would have a pot ready on the stove whenever we arrived because it was always my mom's favorite. So, about 10 years ago, I wanted to do something special for my mom's birthday and decided to make chicken and dumplings for her. I called my Aunt Reba and asked if she could give me the recipe. She said she would, and began telling me right there over the phone. By the time I hung up, I was terrified that I was going to make a horrible mess, because there was not a single measurement in the entire conversation. There is a lot of leeway in making these, and I'm going to tell you how I do it, but I'm not so much on the measurements either. Hopefully you can keep up!

Chicken quarters (I usually use 3-4)

Chicken breasts (2-4)

Flour (I use all purpose)

Crisco

Milk

Season all salt

salt

pepper

I begin by placing the chicken quarters in a large soup pot and generously apply season all salt and pepper. Fill the pot with water - at least cover the chicken completely with a little left to spare. Boil the chicken until tender and the fat and skin move easily on the chicken. This is what gives you a rich chicken broth and provides the flavor.

Once the chicken is cooked, strain the broth and separate the chicken meat from the unusable parts. Here is how I do it:

I use cheesecloth, a large bowl and a colander. Pour the broth slowly over the cheesecloth to catch the impurities. Once it's mostly strained through, pour the chicken into the colander. Rinse out your pot, and pour the broth back in. Allow the chicken to cool so that you can separate, rinse and shred it.

This is how I clean off the chicken.  The colander with the chicken on the left. The bag for the bones, skin, and fat in the middle. Running water to rinse the chicken. And there's a grate in the sink to catch the refuse before it goes down the drain. Bowl on the far right is for the good, rinsed, useable chicken. Take a quarter, break the leg off, and one side at a time, rinse it and start pulling the chicken meat off the bone. Shred it and place in the bowl. Once you've gone through all the quarters, throw away your trash and set the bowl of chicken in the fridge until you're ready to add it to the pot.

This is what you need to make the dumplings: flour, crisco, milk, salt pepper, pastry cutter, rolling pin, and something to cut the dumplings with.

As my Aunt Reba told me that day long ago, "Take you some flour and put it in your bowl." "Well, about how much flour, Aunt Reba?" "Oh, about half a bowl..." Oh boy. Sigh. I'm afraid I'm not any better at it than she was. As you can see, I do use a fairly large bowl, and I fill it about half full of flour. Just remember that it's much easier and cheaper to throw away a few extra dumplings than to not have enough dumplings (which has NEVER been a problem for me anyhow).

I used four heaping spoonfuls of Crisco for my dumplings today. Just remember that you can always add more Crisco or more flour to make it right if you need to. Use a pastry cutter, sliding from the edge to the inside around and around the bowl until all of the Crisco is completely incorporated into the flour. Here is a photo of regular flour on the left and the incorporated Crisco/flour on the right (it's subtle, but the mixture is more crumbly and not so fluffy - sort of like peas).

You do not want to be able to see any regular flour. Incorporate the Crisco completely. You can check it by squeezing a pinch between your fingers. If it holds it's shape like this, it's ready...

Liberally add salt and pepper. Begin pouring milk is roughly 1/2 cup increments. Use a fork, folding and flipping the flour until the milk is incorporated and the dough cleans the side of the bowl.

Take a handful of the dough and on a heavily floured surface, roll the dough to about an 1/8 of an inch.

Use a cutter to slice the dumplings. I place them on a plate and stack them until I'm done with all of the dough. I also dredge each one in left over flour on the cutting board. This extra flour helps thicken the broth as they are cooking.

Once done, heat the broth on high or med-high until it comes to a full boil. Begin dropping the dumplings in one at a time. If you add too fast, the boil will slow down. Stop adding until it's boiling again. This is what cooks the dumplings. I stop and stir every 10 or so dumplings. You want to stir across the bottom of the pot to ensure nothing is sticking.

Once all the dumplings are added to the broth, turn the heat down to med, and let the dumplings cook for 30 minutes to an hour. You will still probably need to "thicken" the broth some more. If you do, take a small bowl of the broth. All flour until it makes a thick paste. Slowly stir this paste back into your pot. Once the broth is more white than yellow and begins thickening, add the chicken and turn heat down to med-low. Once it's cooked for an hour or so and is fairly thick, add some milk. Again, it's much easier to add more than to have to wait for it to thicken up, so go slow, because you can always add more milk. You will probably want to add a little more salt and pepper (or you can let each person salt and pepper to their own taste.). The longer you are able to let chicken and dumplings cook before serving, the better they will be. Make some biscuits and enjoy a wonderful, classic Southern tradition.