I've been cooking /or learning to) since I was a kid. Fell in love with this French Cajun chef that had a show on PBS when I was 10 and I started trying to mimmick some of his recipes even then (bonus points for anyone else that can remember that guy).
But in my 30-ehhh<cough, ahem> years of becoming decent in the kitchen, I've never tried to make chicken and dumplings. Not sure why: it didn't seem daunting. My wife had oral surgery last week, and is on a 2-weeks soft food only diet after her sutures. So, my "ideas" for meals has been a bit of a brain-racking exercise.
Side note here: I've also never tried homemade mashed potatoes either, but on a whim I ordered a potato ricer from Amazon a couple months ago. Made those for the first time a couple weeks ago. Pro tip is BAKING the potatoes whole, and not boiling. I tried that, warmed up my heavy cream and melted butter, added that and they were SO FLUFFY and light. Wife said they were the best she'd ever had. Made more of those after her surgery last week, and they're a hit. |/I]
Back to the dumplings: so I started looking up how-to vids on YouTube, skimmed a couple, then was like "ya know what? I halfway know my way around a kitchen. Let me just adapt and wing it".
And I did.
First thing: I hand-minced 15 cloves of garlic, cooked down about a third of those in olive oil/butter mix, then seared 6 boneless/skinless thighs in the same dumplings pot. I then removed them and placed them in a pan, sprayed with a bit more olive oil, and added a moderately healthy amount of salt and pepper. Covered with foil, then baked them in a 400° preheated oven.
Then in the same chicken-garlic-butter pot remnants, I added more butter (REAL/ sweet cream butter, @sean
), the rest of the garlic, and sautéed some diced celery and carrot medallions. Once the carrots were soft, I then started my roux with a/p flour, adding incrementally until a nice paste started forming. Then I added 3 quarts of chicken stock. Once that heated up, I then added about a quart of heavy cream, then started my biscuit dough.
Before cutting the dough, I checked the chicken and pulled it (lapsed time: ~20-ish minutes once I saw it was done. By this time, my soup base was simmering so I finely hand-pulled the chicken, placed in a SS bowl and poured the pan drippings in, then ladeled in some of the soup mix to keep the chicken hot and moist.
I rolled the biscuit dough down to about 0.25" thick, then cut into 1"-ish squares, and cranked up my soup to about medium high. Started dropping the dumplings once it reached a decent rolling pre-boil, while stirring frequently after the dumplings started cooking to keep the soup from scorching on bottom. Added the chicken after the first round of dumplings, then kept adding dumplings until the ratio looked about right.
Pulled it off the stove and then seasoned incrementally to appropriate taste with salt and fresh grind black pepper k, adding some Dan-o's green top until the flavor was on point.
Not sure if this is the go-to method for authentic southern-style dumplings, but this was my trial method that turned out
.
Wife said she's picky about her dumplings. Only good ones were her late grandmother's, and Cracker Barrel's were a close second go-to when she's craving them. She said these that I made were the best she'd ever had.
Result:
Not one for tooting my own horn, but damn. I'm impressed with myself.
Especially for a first-attempt.
But in my 30-ehhh<cough, ahem> years of becoming decent in the kitchen, I've never tried to make chicken and dumplings. Not sure why: it didn't seem daunting. My wife had oral surgery last week, and is on a 2-weeks soft food only diet after her sutures. So, my "ideas" for meals has been a bit of a brain-racking exercise.
Side note here: I've also never tried homemade mashed potatoes either, but on a whim I ordered a potato ricer from Amazon a couple months ago. Made those for the first time a couple weeks ago. Pro tip is BAKING the potatoes whole, and not boiling. I tried that, warmed up my heavy cream and melted butter, added that and they were SO FLUFFY and light. Wife said they were the best she'd ever had. Made more of those after her surgery last week, and they're a hit. |/I]
Back to the dumplings: so I started looking up how-to vids on YouTube, skimmed a couple, then was like "ya know what? I halfway know my way around a kitchen. Let me just adapt and wing it".
And I did.
First thing: I hand-minced 15 cloves of garlic, cooked down about a third of those in olive oil/butter mix, then seared 6 boneless/skinless thighs in the same dumplings pot. I then removed them and placed them in a pan, sprayed with a bit more olive oil, and added a moderately healthy amount of salt and pepper. Covered with foil, then baked them in a 400° preheated oven.
Then in the same chicken-garlic-butter pot remnants, I added more butter (REAL/ sweet cream butter, @sean
), the rest of the garlic, and sautéed some diced celery and carrot medallions. Once the carrots were soft, I then started my roux with a/p flour, adding incrementally until a nice paste started forming. Then I added 3 quarts of chicken stock. Once that heated up, I then added about a quart of heavy cream, then started my biscuit dough.Before cutting the dough, I checked the chicken and pulled it (lapsed time: ~20-ish minutes once I saw it was done. By this time, my soup base was simmering so I finely hand-pulled the chicken, placed in a SS bowl and poured the pan drippings in, then ladeled in some of the soup mix to keep the chicken hot and moist.
I rolled the biscuit dough down to about 0.25" thick, then cut into 1"-ish squares, and cranked up my soup to about medium high. Started dropping the dumplings once it reached a decent rolling pre-boil, while stirring frequently after the dumplings started cooking to keep the soup from scorching on bottom. Added the chicken after the first round of dumplings, then kept adding dumplings until the ratio looked about right.
Pulled it off the stove and then seasoned incrementally to appropriate taste with salt and fresh grind black pepper k, adding some Dan-o's green top until the flavor was on point.
Not sure if this is the go-to method for authentic southern-style dumplings, but this was my trial method that turned out
.Wife said she's picky about her dumplings. Only good ones were her late grandmother's, and Cracker Barrel's were a close second go-to when she's craving them. She said these that I made were the best she'd ever had.
Result:
Not one for tooting my own horn, but damn. I'm impressed with myself.
Especially for a first-attempt.
Last edited:
