Chicken and Dumplins

Picture by Monica H.

It's Fall here in Washington, the leaves are falling, the air is cooler and it's... raining of course. The colds days and nights require some warm comfort food in order to warm the soul. One of my favorite soups is Chicken and Dumplins, but the one from Rachel Ray has more of a brothy base than the thick stew like soup I am used to. But I found this recipe on Lick the Bowl Good (my new fav food blog). M and I loved this stew, it was delish and had a lot of flavor. I did find that I needed to add an extra 2 cups of water at the end because it was so thick.

Ingredients:

Stew:

3 Tbsp. butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 bunch celery, chopped
1 whole chicken fryer or cut up chicken(about 4 lbs.)
3 chicken bouillon cubes
6 cups chicken broth or water (possibly 2 more at the end)
salt and pepper to taste

Dumplings:

2 cups flour
4 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. dried basil (optional)
2 Tbsp. Crisco shortening
3/4 -1 cup buttermilk or milk

Directions:

In a large pot over high heat, saute onions, celery and bouillon cubes in butter til tender. Add whole chicken fryer to pot and cover with 6 cups water or chicken stock. Cook over medium heat til chicken is cooked through.

Once chicken is cooked through, pull out and place on a cutting board. Once cool enough to handle, take off all the meat and shred into bite sided pieces. Add chicken back to pot and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Bring to boil.

While the chicken stew is coming to a boil, make the dumplings: In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and dried basil. Mix dry ingredients and cut in shortening with a fork or a pastry cutter. Stir dough while adding buttermilk. Start with 3/4 cup and add more til completely moistened and biscuit like but not wet.

Drop by the spoon full onto the boiling stew. Do not stir dumplings. Reduce heat to low and cover pot with a tight fitting lid. Allow dumplings to steam for 15 minutes. Once dumplings are cooked through, stir dumplings into the stew and serve. The flour from the dumplings will thicken the stew.