Chicken and Dumplings
Now, for those outside of the states, and you heathens that live in the far Northeast and Northwest, Chickens and Dumplings is/are a Southern staple that was supposedly developed after the Civil War when some food supplies were hard to come by. It is, at its most basic form: chicken, a broth and dough balls that are meant to fill the belly in the cheapest way possible. I tend to include vegetables in my version but we will get to that in a bit. There is a French Canadian dish similar to this but for the most part this comes to you straight from the Southern United States.
Because of this history, or a time when many staples were sometimes difficult to come by, Chicken and Dumplings can be remarkably simple to prepare. You don’t need much more than the following:
Chicken ( Imagine that)
Flour
Baking Powder
Milk
Butter, margarine or some type of fat
Salt
Pepper
Water
After these basic ingredients everything else is just extra and in my case there will be basil, parsley, corn, green beans, carrots, bacon drippings and chicken stock.
It really can be that simple and then the trick becomes; at what temperature do you cook, and for how long, to get the chicken so tender that it shreds on your tongue? Now, the recipe, if you want to call it that, In all, this is simple and great for anything from a family get together to a potluck with friends. This is NOT carb friendly, rarely is Southern cooking carb friendly, but you are not eating this if you are trying to diet. You are eating this for warmth and comfort and are well within your rights to curl up and nap under a window, either in sunlight or as it rains, with no judgment from me.
Of course something this good would not last without some form of dispute and in this case it is whether to use drop balls of uncooked dough to make the dumplings or, in my case, to flatten the dough and cut into squares. I do the latter because the drop balls have a tendency to be undercooked and raw on the center if not properly handled. The flatten dumpling that I choose to do not only will cook all the way through but it can lend itself to acquiring the taste of the broth much better than its dough ball sibling. Now, that was my take on it and your mileage may vary.
Before we begin I will say that my “broth” is somewhere between a soup and a stew; I like the consistency a little thicker than just a water. I think this lends to the utilization of the dumpling just like different types of pasta get different sauces because of how they hold the sauce. I like the dumpling to have a nice layer of broth atop it and texturally this is pleasing for me. For those of you who like your broths thinner, so really more like an actual broth, I will make sure to tell you how to get your consistency while keeping the flavor of this dish intact.
Ok preamble out of the way. Wordy Echoes is wordy.
The two most important parts of Chicken and Dumplings are the broth and the dumpling. Chicken is chicken and you will either let it be, and it will be perfect, or you will overdo it and muck it up. More than the chicken, to me that is, the broth is the star of this show. The dumpling is the method of conveyance and the chicken is really, at best, the supporting actor/ress. The base of my broth is a Roux and I will use a combination of butter and bacon drippings to make what is called a “Blond” Roux. Normally a Roux is equal parts of a fat : butter, margarine, lard, shortening Etc. and flour that is used to make the base thickener for many sauces. A White roux is this combination but it doesn’t really have much in the way of flavor: its purpose is as a starch used to thicken a liquid. A Blond Roux is cooked longer and starts to slightly change color which is indicative of the flavor of the flour being brought out. This adds a nutty flavor meant to compliment any additional herbs or spices added at this time. Once the roux starts taking shape I will add chicken stock and water, in equal portions
So here we go, and I want you, don’t count calories and eat homestyle Southern cooking. That is a masochist’s hot moment right there. So to begin, I do two things at one time; i get the Roux and the chicken going in separate cooking vessels ( there is a reason I am going to use that phrase for now.) Now depending on your knife skills you can cut your chicken now or you can get it all cubed up beforehand. I cubed it earlier and I did a rough cut so that the cubes were about a half inch, a centimeter and change, cubed.
The chicken:
1.5 lbs (.68 Kg) of Boneless skinless chicken breast
2 Tablespoons of Butter/ Marg/ Fat
Note: you can use light meat, dark meat or even, in a pinch, grab a precooked rotisserie chicken and strip it down. Sometimes the rotisserie even works better because it shreds so much faster if you like a stringy textured chicken to coat the dumplings.
The Roux
6 tablespoons of Butter/ Marg/ Fat
2 tablespoons of Bacon drippings (fat)
6 tablespoons of flour
A pinch or two of salt
A pinch of two of pepper.
Start the butter melting over medium heat in a medium sized pot and this will be for the Roux. Add in the bacon fat and let those two melt, stirring occasionally just to get them to start incorporating. While you do this, get a large sauté pan, the one I have has walls that are about two and half, three inches tall and this will be important later; do not just use a traditional sauté dish. Start 2 tablespoons of butter melting on medium high heat.
32 Ounce container Chicken Stock (or broth)
2 Cups of water
Once the butter is melted in both add the chicken to the saute pan and throw in a pinch of salt and pepper. I also tend to add a bit of garlic and onion powder but you will do you. Get that cracking and then check on your medium sized pot. If the butter/fat combination is bubbling add in the flour and season. Stir the flour in and you will make a thick almost glue-like texture mixture that is your Roux. Now, here is where you go back and forth between the two pots before we add a third to the mix. Don’t worry, the third one is easy. In a third pot you pour in 4 cups of chicken stock. A standard 32 ounce container of chicken stock is 4 cups, so put half into this new pot, add 1 cup of water and turn it up to get it hot.
It will take the chicken, when cubed down to ½ inch cubes, about 4 to six minutes to cook to where you want it. This gives the Roux time to cook and brown just a bit which will bring out a nutty flavor from the flour. Keep stirring and at a medium heat the Roux should not even get close to a burn. After about 6 minutes add the chicken stock/ water combination a half cup to a cup at a time to the Roux. Don’t freak out if suddenly your beautiful butter glue combination suddenly turns into a crazy dough mixture. Just keep stirring and adding, stirring and adding until the liquid is all incorporated. Everything will return to how you think it is supposed to luck with the proper application of a whisk.Once this is done, crank the heat up to medium high and use a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken directly into the base of the soup. Do not take any drippings or remaining fat from the saute pan. Leave it be because you are going to pour 2 cups, the remainder of the chicken stock, and a cup of water into the saute pan and turn the heat down to low.
Once you have the base working in the medium pot, and it is now bubbling rapidly turn the heat back down to medium low and pop a lid on that sucker. You need to stir occasionally but let the heat do its work because now it is dumpling time.
Dumplings done easy:
1 cup Flour ( I used A/P ( All Purpose)
1.5 teaspoons Baking powder
.5 teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon butter/Marg/ fat
¼ cup Milk ( I used 2%)
1 teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Dried Basil
1Tablespoon Dried Parsley
Mix all dried ingredients before adding the butter. Now, you want the butter soft, room temperature but in a pinch you can chop it up and add it in and it will soften fast enough. Just mix with a fork and stir everything up really well. Add in the herbs ( mine were dried but you can use fresh.) and finally you add in the milk. This is going to leave a very tacky ball of doughy goodness. If it won’t incorporate everything add in one teaspoon of water at a time until you have a nice dry ball of mess. Then let sit for 5 or 6 minutes. Go stir the base and take a teaspoon, take a sample and taste; adjust seasoning accordingly.
Ok, so the minutes pass and then make your choice . If you want to drop balls then crank up the saute pan with the stock and water and make it boil. Take a teaspoon and scoop balls of dough and drop them in. There is no special way to do this though, if you have them, you can use 1 or 2 ounce scoops that have the trigger on them to get near perfect balls. ( There, I said balls and somewhere the twelve year old inside of you laughed.) Or, you can do what I do and dust a countertop or cutting board with flour so that it looks like Tony Monatan’s coffee table and roll the dough out. What I do is transfer the dough atop the flour and knead it a few times to get a dusting on the dough before using a rolling pin to flatten this. I try to get it around 1/8th of a inch thick or a bit thinner, 2 - 3 mm in height. Once that is done I use a pizza cutter to make a grid pattern giving me 1 inch / 2 cm squares. From here, dump them in the now hopefully boiling stock and water. Drop em all in, use a wooden spoon to push them about, get them coated and then turn the temp of the pan down to medium low.
They cook for 10 minutes, so guess what you get to do. That’s right, you get to stir the base some more.
Canned Veg 1 each : Corn, carrots and green beans. Open and drain out, drop into base and stir in. If you are using fresh, and you didn’t read this all the way through before starting, then I suggest not doing carrots unless you cut them really thin. Basically I may have fucked you here, but you can save it, smaller cooks faster, cut small my friends. I had canned veggies and needed to use them because I was in a time crunch. Drain and drop them in and then stir.
Homestretch
Dumplings get finished and you drop everything atop the base, the chicken and the veggies. Stir in and bring back up to a boil for a bit. Give one last taste and add oregano, herbs of your choice and parsley before removing from heat. If you want this thinner add a ½ cup of water at a time until you are satisfied with the viscosity. I like the base to be a bit thick because I think it goes better with the dumplings.
This goes best with some rustic bread, toasted or not and is a great meal come fall. To go with it, to add a little light to the heavy, I also made a Bourbon Spritz so, for those of you of legal drinking age in your appropriate countries, here is one last thing before I call this first post done:
2 Oz Bourbon ( don’t look for a higher proof here, you want this to be “light” So a good 80 proof works here. You can go a little heavier, up to 90 if you must.
1 ½ Oz. Oj
½ Oz. Lemon Juice
2 Oz. Simple Syrup
2 Dashes of bitters ( I use blood orange bitters but you can change that if you wish.)
2 Oz. seltzer water
Orange peel slice 1/4inch thick
1 orange wheel for garnish.
In a shaker add ice and orange peel, muddle the peel a bit or just use the shaker and then add the Bourbon, OJ, Lemon Juice, Simple syrup and bitters. Shaker well and then pour into a glass over ice. Finally add the seltzer water atop the cocktail and give one quick stir. Garnish with the orange wheel and enjoy the summer. ( this is a breakfast drink for me and before you sit there and go, Jebus E, a Breakfast drink!? I will point out that this is like a Bourbon Mimosa.)
Cheers.
