Chicken and dumplings - Southern

Southern (flat and slippery) chicken and dumplings is not a common item on the recipe lists or in restaurants. Po Folks had some that was quite good, Cracker Barrel (if you can tolerate the place) isn't bad. Are there any good places around? Any sources for good recipes?

Bill

Here is a recipe from the Daughters of the Texas Republic

SUNDAY CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS
-1865 - Asa Wright and John Lloyd Halliburton families

Take a good fat hen or broiler and cut into serving peices. Cook in larg 4 qt. pot, well covered with water. Add 1 tsp. salt and sprinkle of black pepper. Boil slowly until done. Then add 1/2 cup milk. Mix up the dumpling batter: Take 3 cups sifted flour and a pinch of salt with 1 tsp. baking powder. Cut in one tbsp. butter and add hot water and mix well. Add 1 egg, and then mix and beat batter until creamy. Turn out on floured board and work until it will roll out without being sticky. Roll out and cut into dumplings. Drop them into the chicken broth. When all are dropped, cover with tight lid and simmer for another 10 minutes.

A note below the recipe states: very very good. - an old family favorite which served as a special Sunday dinner for 3 and 4 generations - at least.

quote:

Originally posted by wilewil

Southern (flat and slippery) chicken and dumplings is not a common item on the recipe lists or in restaurants. Po Folks had some that was quite good, Cracker Barrel (if you can tolerate the place) isn't bad. Are there any good places around? Any sources for good recipes?

Bill

In the North Carolina hills, if we used the flat noodles we called it "chicken & pastry". "Chicken & Dumplings" was made with balls of dough ranging from golf ball to tennis ball size dropped into the stew. The recipe sounds right on the money!

Down here in Arkansas if you have southern chicken and dumplings without the golf ball size dumplings you will get strung up lol that's not traditional and not well tolerated around here also it's a big no no if you add veggies to the dish

Here in Nashville the dumplings tend to be neither flat noodles nor golf balls. More of a rectangular "pillow". Thickness tends to be about 1/3 to 1/2 of the width of the dumpling...

And actually, chicken and dumplings is a very common item on menus at meat & three's all over town...

quote:

Originally posted by Leania_1stone

Down here in Arkansas if you have southern chicken and dumplings without the golf ball size dumplings you will get strung up lol that's not traditional and not well tolerated around here also it's a big no no if you add veggies to the dish

That's funny; I've lived in Arkansas for 6 years now and I've never had the golf-ball dumplings, only the flat ones! I wonder if there are regional differences within the state?

I would like to try the golf-ball version. Any recipes/restaurant recommendations for those, Leania_1stone?

quote:

Originally posted by Alirush

quote:

Originally posted by Leania_1stone

Down here in Arkansas if you have southern chicken and dumplings without the golf ball size dumplings you will get strung up lol that's not traditional and not well tolerated around here also it's a big no no if you add veggies to the dish

That's funny; I've lived in Arkansas for 6 years now and I've never had the golf-ball dumplings, only the flat ones! I wonder if there are regional differences within the state?

I would like to try the golf-ball version. Any recipes/restaurant recommendations for those, Leania_1stone?

Lone Star's recipe will work just fine, but instead of rolling the dough flat, just pinch off little sections and roll into balls. The balls absorb the juices from the stew and are much more tasty than the flat noodles. My mother usually added a little milk and some of the loose flour from where she had mixed the dough to turn the broth into gravy after it was finished. With hot biscuits--my oh my!

Further down here in Florida we drop not roll, although I've done bothRolled dumplins make better leftovers. When you drop them they seem to absorb the chicken fat and turn into "sad" dumplins instead of the once fluffy dumplins you stared with. I also simmer large pieces of celery and onion with my chicken then remove it before I drop the dumplins.

I'm not from the South, but when I was a kid my mother used to make chicken and dumplings with a stewing hen. Using fryers just isn't quite the same.

This is my recipe for Chicken and Dumplin's with a couple variations:


Red's Chicken and dumplings

FOR DUMPLINGS

4 Cups Flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 Cups of milk
8 Tbsp Veg oil

Preparation:
Mix above ingredients, blend then well and turn out on to a floured surface. Knead 10 or 12 times and divide dough into fourths. Roll out one piece of dough 1/8” thick and cut into 1 x 1 1/2 ‘ inch strips. Place into a large sauce pan that you have placed 16 cups of water and 8 chicken bouillon cubes have been dissolved. Cook 1/2 of the dumplings until just about done........strain and set aside.......Next finish the other half of the dumplings in the same manner. While cooking dumplings you can prepare the sauce

DUMPLING SAUCE

1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts, cubed
1 Stick of butter or margarine
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon sage
1 /2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup flour
2 tsp sugar
2 cups whole milk
1 cup dumpling cooking liquid
1 can chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup

Preparation:

place butter or margarine in saucepan and melt. Add lemon juice, garlic, sage , salt , pepper and saute chicken till throroughly cooked. Stir part of the milk into the flour ....until a thin smooth paste occurs.......add remaining milk, broth, soup and cooking liquid......then the flour paste and whisk till smooth......add sugar. Cook till bubbly and thickened. Pour over dumplings in big pan and stir gently.


Variation One: Substitute 1 box of finely crushed Chickn in a Biskit Original Flavored Crackers for 2 cups of the flour in the dumplings

Variation Two: Add 1 16 oz bag of frozen mixed vegetables or succotash vegetables to simmering sauce mixture

Lone Star's recipe looks close to what I grew up eating in W TN, and Sweet Sue's canned version isn't bad. We always had the flat dumplings, about 1X3" and maybe 1/4" thick. But I'm for sure going to try RedTressed's version the next time I have a chance to eat at home!

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.

Lone Star's recipe looks close to what I grew up eating in W TN, and Sweet Sue's canned version isn't bad. We always had the flat dumplings, about 1X3" and maybe 1/4" thick. But I'm for sure going to try RedTressed's version the next time I have a chance to eat at home!

Where are you eatin now?

quote:

Originally posted by lleechef

Where are you eatin now?

Just "out." I play "Executive Husband" a lot, which includes parties (think Mardi Gras! ) & recruiting dinners for physicians, and am usially out for lunch. Our son cooks at a local cajun oyster house, so we eat there often.

So Rick, do you have to schmooze a lot?

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.

quote:

Originally posted by lleechef

Where are you eatin now?

Just "out." I play "Executive Husband" a lot, which includes parties (think Mardi Gras! ) & recruiting dinners for physicians, and am usially out for lunch. Our son cooks at a local cajun oyster house, so we eat there often.

I want his job.

quote:

Originally posted by Lone Star

So Rick, do you have to schmooze a lot?

Yep: "play nice" to doctors, some of whom are nice; be polite to wife's boss, which is sometimes easy; and pray publicly, which I'll enjoy more next month, when I stop doing it for a living.

And no, Lisa, you can't have my job! I don't know what Jan would do with a real cook in the house! (And you'd probably have to play hostess for these folks.)

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.
And no, Lisa, you can't have my job! I don't know what Jan would do with a real cook in the house! (And you'd probably have to play hostess for these folks.)

I don't know if she would always be fit for company, Rick. She's got a mean streak in her.

I don't envy you your job - the doctor dining part anyway. Most of them I have worked with were not too strong in the charm and wit department.

In my neck of the woods, we use the word dumplings to mean flat dumplings made from flour and other good things and cooked with chicken. Chicken and noodles are just that, chicken and egg noodles. I have injoyed both, and still working as to which I like the most.

quote:

O riginally posted by Lone Star

I don't know if she would always be fit for company, Rick. She's got a mean streak in her.

Use of the word "she" and the phrase "mean streak" in any sentence is redundant.

Rick, cowering in a corner and waiting fearfully.

Generally when I've had round dumplings they've been made with cornmeal and cooked in country ham broth, though they can also be cooked in the pot likker left from cooking greens...

Mean streak? Moi? What? I could entertain Doctors (as long as they were single, if they bring wives with Big Hair and Big Jewelery, they're out).

My Grandma (Arkansas) would make a basic chicken stock boiling it until the chicken meat fell off the bone. Then cheat a little by taking canned biscuits, rolling them out with a 7 Up Bottle, all the while dusting with flour. She would then slice the flattened dough in to strips and in to the chicken stock they went. Just the best! Out here in California, my neighbor slices up flour tortillas and drops them into the pot. I tried the tortillas but it was to gummy for me. I only tried my Grandma's once. It was nothing like hers and I have never tried again.

BigGlenn - I use the canned biscuit method when cooking in a hurry. They do make good dumplings for chicken and in beef stew. Just pinch the biscuits up and toss into the boiling stew, cover and cook about 10 minutes. The cheap store-brand kind of biscuits work the best.