Chicken and Dumplings
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Ah, comfort food. The culinary category that takes us to a nice, soft place with very little worry… and even less responsibility. A very broad-ranging category whose only membership requirements are that the dish takes you to another time and sets your mind at ease. Mac and cheese for some. Chicken noodle soup for the others. My comfort food list is fairly long. I guess nostalgia and gluttony go hand in hand for me. Explains a lot actually. But at or very near the top is chicken and dumplings. My ultimate comfort food.
I’ll start this description with the dumplings because they can be pretty divisive here in the south. I use a recipe that’s very much like a biscuit dough. I also bake my dumplings. A lot of people use a thin rolled out dough that you drop in a simmering gravy and cook. While you can certainly do that with my dumplings, I prefer the nice crispy top the oven affords.
Like with most of my recipes, I prefer to roast/grill my own chicken and make my own stock. But, I know that modern life can make that difficult for a lot of people so if you need to use store-bought stock and a store-bought rotisserie chicken I won’t tell anyone.
Another thing I do a tad different is I add some potatoes in my gravy. Just a personal thing. If you choose to omit, that’s totally up to you.
And like most soups/stews, this dish is best at the end of a cold winter day served nice and hot. But if you’re anything like me, you can eat this and all stews 24/7, 365.
Ingredients and Instructions
Chicken Stew
- 1 stick of butter
- 1 onion diced
- 1 medium potato peeled and diced
- 2 carrots peeled and diced
- 1 stalk celery diced
- 5 cloves garlic diced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 5 tablespoons flour
- 7 cups chicken stock
- 2 cups or so of shredded chicken (Doesn’t have to be exact)
Melt butter in a large pot or Dutch oven on medium heat. Add onion, potatoes, carrots, and celery. Cook for about ten minutes or until veggies are soft. Add garlic and seasonings. Cook for an additional five minutes until garlic is fragrant. Add flour and stir to incorporate. Cook roux for about five minutes until it has a light brown color. Whisk in stock a cup at a time until desired consistency is reached. (You may not need all seven cups.) Add shredded chicken. Cover and simmer while you make your dumplings.
Dumplings
Dry Ingredients
- 1 cup AP flour
- Dash of kosher salt
- Dash of black pepper
- Dash of cayenne pepper
- Dash of garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
Wet Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of milk
- 1 tablespoon of butter (melted)
Add all dry ingredients to a bowl and mix well. Then, add wet ingredients and stir gently to incorporate. Like biscuits, you don’t want to overmix.
Chicken and Dumplings
Taste the chicken stew and add seasonings if needed. At this point, you can drop your dumplings in the stew and cook them that way. Simmer for 5-10 minutes.
OR
What I like to do is add some stew to an ovenproof dish (Lodge makes this really kick-ass oven-safe mini skillet). Then, drop a few tablespoons worth of dumpling batter on top and bake until dumpling tops are nice and brown (About 10 minutes). Oh yeah, one more thing. If you take the oven route, preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Hope you enjoy!