Chicken & Dumplings

It's hard to believe that before yesterday,
I'd never made Chicken & Dumplings.

My Chicken Noodle Soup is a favorite at our house and biscuits are the perfect compliment yet I am late to the game and never thought to put them together. But, I have been mildly obsessed with making the perfect biscuits. While the kids love the pop-open Pillsbury rolls, I feel more noble serving homemade. After making homemade soup, the ready made rolls feel like a copout. Of course, Bisquick is semi-homemade but I still get a thrill out of scooping up and mixing the dry ingredients myself. Call me crazy.

I'll admit that part of the reason my biscuit making hasn't resulted in the perfect ones is that I'm not a good measurer. I'm not a baker. I love to cook. I'm well suited to cooking... the pinch of salt here, a dash of that, a taste, then a handful of herbs. I mean, sure, I CAN measure but when you know the feel and taste of a teaspoon, why dirty up a utensil? I read recipes, hundreds of them, then go about things my own way. Most often, the results are delicious. But, baking is another story.

My guess is that people who enjoy math are probably good at baking... one right answer, correct measuring and things work. While those of us who love a good discussion, language arts, and social sciences, we probably tend to be better at cooking. We like the fact that there really isn't one perfect answer, and even if there was, there's a million different ways to reach it.

I digress... back to my biscuits. What all the Eleanors, Hazels, and other grandmotherly types have known all along, I've just now realized. The best chicken soup and biscuits is steaming the biscuits right in the broth!

So, like always, I read recipe after recipe. I checked in with Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker. Then, I adjusted the whole idea based on what I had in the fridge and my instincts. I do believe I achieved perfection on my very first try.

I started with a mirepoix which is a fancy Nancy way of saying: Sauté an onion, leftover celery including the leafy parts (about 5 stalks), and about three handfuls of chopped baby carrots in 1/2 a stick of butter. After a few minutes, I added a couple of bay leaves and 4 minced garlic cloves.
Fill a tea kettle and bring water to a boil.
When the veggies were fork tender, I gave them a glass of white wine, a generous pinch of salt, a sprinkling of pepper, and a couple of pinches of poultry seasoning.
After the wine disappeared, I added a splash of boiling water to make sure I got all the good stuff off the bottom of the pot.
Then, made a roux by sprinkling in approximately 2 Tablespoons of flour and mixing it well to coat the veggies. I cooked that for a few minutes to get rid of the flour taste.
While stirring, I slowly added 4 cups of ready made broth. Then, I added 4 more and stirred it up again.
I everything simmer for about 15 minutes while I stripped the meat off a rotisserie chicken, already cooked from the grocery store, and helped one kid with homework.
When the stew was nice and thick, too thick in fact (I added a bit more stock), the chicken meat went in with a 3-second splash of heavy cream and a good stir.
I mixed up the dumplings. I measured and I used a recipe, Tyler Florence's recipe for Chicken & Dumplings from Food Network. I was a little put off by his whole 3 hr & 5 minute cook time for the entire dish and his Supreme Sauce seemed a little skimpy in vegetable quantity, so I improvised. After all the recipes I'd read, I used parts of his recipe as a general guideline but followed the dumpling part exactly.
2 cups flour, 1 Tbls baking powder, & 1 tsp salt sifted (ok, I didn't sift, but I did mix and fluff with a fork which is sort of the same) together.
2 eggs and 3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk beat together in a small bowl.
Gently fold the wet into the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough comes together. It was thick and cake-like just like Tyler said it would be.
With the stew simmering, I added the batter by the spoonful into the hot liquid. It made 17 dumplings that covered the top and were barely touching. The recipe said not to crowd or let them touch but I wasn't going to scoop one back out.
Then, I covered the pot. Tyler's recipe didn't say to cover but several other ones did, something about steaming rather than boiling the dumplings. It made sense and I added that step. Other recipes also made a really big deal about Not peeking in to check on them for fear of losing the steam. So, I resisted the urge and kept myself busy cleaning up and homework helping at the breakfast bar for about 15 minutes.
The smell in the kitchen was warm and cozy... perfect for a fall evening.
When I opened the pot, the dumplings had puffed up much bigger than I anticipated and were completely covering the stew. I dunked 'em down a few times then filled our bowls and topped with a garnish of chopped parsley.