Chicken & Dumplings

Autumn is in full swing and the types of meals during this time of the year are comforting and hearty "one-pot" meals like Chicken & Dumplings!

Chicken and Dumplings is a popular comfort food dish commonly found in the Southern and Midwestern United States that is also attributed to being a French Canadian dish that originated during The Great Depression.

A dumpling, in this context, is a mixture of either flour, shortening, and water or milk, or flour and stock which is then formed into a ball or rolled out flat.

Chicken and dumplings as a dish is served with a combination of boiled chicken meat, the broth produced by boiling the chicken with vegetables, multiple dumplings, and salt & pepper for seasoning.

There are probably as many chicken and dumpling recipes out there than anything! This recipe comes from Lucinda Scala-Quinn and her latest cookbook, Mad Hungry: Feeding Men & Boys. You can also find the recipe here: Chicken & Dumplings.
I love how this recipe also utilizes 2 very delicious but under-used vegetable, turnips and parsnips.

This particular recipe is actually quite simple to put together and is ready in about an hour. In a large dutch oven, place the whole chicken, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, parsnip and parsley sprigs. Cover with water, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 50 minutes.

Lift out the chicken and vegetables, discard the onion and parsley. Continue to simmer the broth for 15 to 20 minutes to allow the chicken to cool slightly. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and shred the meat into large chunks. Preferably, I like to use just the white meat here and save the dark meat for chicken salad, but you can use the meat as you like in this dish.

Next, prepare the dumplings. A few simple ingredients, flour, baking powder, salt, milk & a little dill mixed together until combined.

Drop the dumpling dough, by the tablespoon, into the simmering broth, cover and cook until the dumplings have cooked through, about 3-4 minutes. Carefully add the shredded chicken meat and vegetables back to the pot and simmer for one minute to heat through.

Serve generous portions of this in large bowls and enjoy this warm and comforting meal when the weather is a bit nippy out!