Chicken and dumplings are a staple in my house. They’re something in between a soup and a stew, and I usually get silly and call it Stoup. They’re incredibly easy to make, though it takes a bit of effort until you’ve learned the method. It’s filling, delicious, and you’ll get requests.
Ingredients for the stoup:
- 6 to 8 oz of uncooked chicken per person
- enough water to cover the chicken
- salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, and rubbed sage to taste
- 1 medium carrot, diced small
- 1 small onion, diced small
- 1 large rib of celery, diced small
- a teaspoon or so of butter, margarine, or olive oil
- white wine to deglaze the pan
Ingredients for the dumplings:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
The chicken for this recipe can be done in two different ways. First, you can use bone-in chicken pieces and make it like “pulled chicken,” meaning you cook it, then remove it from the water and shred it up until it’s the size of bits you like. Second, you can use boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, in which case you’re going to cube your chicken into bite size pieces. Regardless of which method you choose to use, you should sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper, then brown it in a cast iron pan (separate from the one you’ll be making the broth in). Make sure to brown all sides, but remember it doesn’t need to be cooked through. The full cooking happens in the water.
While you’re browning your chicken in batches, add enough water to a pot that it will cover your chicken when it’s added. It’s okay if you don’t get quite enough in the pot; you can add more after. You just want to get enough in there that you can start heating it up to a boil. As you finish browning chicken parts, put them into the water. Make sure there’s enough water to cover all the chicken completely, but not much more, and then lower it from a boil to a simmer. Add in your spices, about a teaspoon of each for now. You can add more later if needed.
As your chicken is simmering, dice up your carrot, onion, and celery. Add a bit of fat to the pan you cooked the chicken in, and saute your vegetables until the onions are soft and beginning to clarify. Add a tablespoon or so of a dry white wine to the pan, and stir and scrape well with a wooden spoon. All of the stuff you scrape off the bottom of the pan is “fond” and it’s what makes your stoup delicious. Add the veggies and fond to your chicken and broth.
Make your dumplings. Add the four and salt into a medium bowl. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, whisk together your milk and egg. Add the liquid to the flour, and mix until it forms a dough. This should be a soft and relatively smooth dough, with very elastic qualities. It may be a bit sticky or tacky, but it shouldn’t stick to the counter when you’re kneading.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it’s smooth and elastic. Keeping the counter lightly floured at each stage, you should then roll out your dough so it’s as thick as you like your dumplings to be. If you like your dumplings to be fat and fluffy, you’ll want to roll them out to about a half inch thick. If you want them more like noodles (my preference), roll them to under a quarter inch, basically as smooth and thin as you can manage without the dough sticking to the counter. Cut your dumplings into strips, squares, diamonds, or really any shape you like. you can use a dough cutter, or a knife, or even a rolling pizza cutter. Use a bread scraper to lift the noodles off the counter, dust them well with more flour, and let them rest and dry a bit while the rest of the food is readied.
When your chicken is thoroughly cooked (about an hour, or longer if you like), pull any boned parts out of the broth. Shred, if you like, and return the chicken to the broth. Bring the broth to a low but steady boil, and begin adding the dumplings to it a little at a time. I usually add about a handful of dumplings, then stir and let them begin to cook. This keeps them from sticking to one another. The flour on the outside of the dumplings will help thicken the gravy in your stoup, too. Cook the dumplings until they’re tender. This can take anywhere from five minutes to 20 minutes, depending on how thick they were rolled and how dry they were when you started. They should be solid throughout, with no doughy interior. Thin ones will taste like fresh noodles (which is essentially what they are).
If you find that your gravy isn’t thick enough, add a little water or cold broth to a tablespoon of cornstarch, stir until well combined, and then add a bit at a time to the simmering stoup. Repeat until you reach the consistency you prefer. Add in any spices you like, and if you want a fancier look, top each bowl with a sprinkle of fresh minced parsley.
Serve your chicken and dumplings over a pile of mashed potatoes, rice, or on their own in a bowl with a spoon.
Comments
4 responses to “The Weekly Feast – Chicken and Dumplings”
Slightly different process in our house.
1. Go to Cracker Barrel while we’re up shopping in the big city.
2. Boris orders chicken & dumplings.
3. Mrs B rolls her eyes and offers to make it sometime.
3. … Some time passes …
4. Goto 1
(Mrs B is, seriously, a wonderful cook, but is time-constrained so she doesn’t cook as much as we’d all like.)
I love CB chicken and dumplings, but they have dairy in them and I can’t eat them anymore. That’s true with so many things, unfortunately. It’s a part of why I have learned to make them at home.
The other reason is that, should the world go to shit, I want to be able to enjoy my favorites. That means knowing how to make them under less than perfect circumstances. 😉
I cheat on the dumplings and buy store brand bake-your-own rolls. Cut them into quarters, roll them and cook them in the chicken pot.
The wife like them(a lot), so I put half in today and use the rest for leftovers.
I’ve done that with bread dough before, and noodle dough that didn’t turn out quite right. And you can do it with Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (the kind that come in the exploding can), too. But it’s just as easy to make my own. 😉