Chicken and Dumplings Revisited (Again) :)

Missy, here. I'm actually sharing a post that I did for the Craftie Ladies of Romance blog in 2010 and again here in August 2012. In 2012 I updated it (you see those notes in red). Thought I'd share it again with y'all. It's my husband's favorite dish.

Chicken and Dumplings
Missy Tippens

 I wanted to do something different today. I recently watched Alton Brown on the Food Network in an episode of his show, Good Eats, where his mother and mother-in-law (in doll form) battled it out over which type of dumplings to make--the southern rolled out and cut ones ("hard" as my family calls them) or the northern drop dumplings ("fluffy" as we call them). It was a cute show. And it inspired me to try something different. So I decided to try making the northern type--which we prefer anyway! But this was the big time. I wasn't going to be using Bisquick to make a dough to drop into broth. No, I was making them from scratch! :)

Also, every time I make chicken and dumplings, my family tells me to lose the chicken and just make more dumplings. So this time, I got a big box of chicken broth and used that. (Not a piece of meat to ruin their meal of starch.) :)

So here's the recipe as I made it. (For the original, click here.)


INGREDIENTS:

A large box of chicken broth plus some water to bring it to about 8 cups. Heat to simmering. (or use the broth from cooking your chicken--which I did this time, using chicken breast tenderloins.)
3 Tbs. butter
1/2 c all purpose flour
2 large eggs at room temp
1/2 tsp. salt

Put 1/2 c of the broth, the butter and a 1/2 ts salt in a saucepan, bring to a boil. Once it boils, add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon, about 1 minute.



Then decrease heat to low and keep stirring until the mixture forms a ball and is no longer sticky, about 3 minutes. (Note, this didn't happen for me. It never formed a nice ball like it did for Alton.)

[Update: Since this flopped last time, I tried using self-rising flour this time. It did seem to form a better ball.]

Transfer to a mixing bowl and mix on low speed for 5 minutes with electric hand mixer. Beat until cool. [You can see I tossed it in the stand mixer instead this time. Used the pastry hook, then switched to the whisk to blend in the eggs better.]

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing in the first before adding the second.

Transfer dough to a gallon size ziplock baggie. Cut off one corner so it's about a quarter-size opening. [This doesn't make much. A quart baggie is big enough.]

Squeeze out 1 inch of the mixture, then snip off with kitchen scissors right into the simmering broth. Repeat until empty. 

Cook, covered (without stirring!) about 8-10 minutes. Turn off heat. If you're using chicken, add back in now. Wait 2-3 minutes before serving.


Though my process didn't go quite like Alton's, the dumplings were yummy. And cute! And honestly, they were more like hard dumplings in my opinion, not fluffy like I was expecting. [The version with self-rising flour turned out a little fluffier. Aren't they cute?!]

I hope you enjoy. How do you make your dumpings? Northern or southern?? :)