Chicken and
dumplings
Quicker and
better than
Mother used to
make
My mother was
a professional cook and very good at her trade. At home she occasionally made
chicken and dumplings. As I remember them, the dumplings were fluffy balls of
dough. Out of high school, I ran off to the military and that was the end of
mother’s dumplings.
When I got to
the South, I heard a lot of talk about squirrel and dumplings. I’m sure the
squirrel was good, but the dumplings weren’t the same as mother’s. They didn’t
seem like dumplings at all, but were rather wide, thick noodles.
I had pretty
much forgotten about dumplings until I got interested in Dutch oven cooking,
which I incorporated with my camping. While surfing the internet for good Dutch
over recipes, I came across one for chicken and dumplings. I tried it and the
dumplings were just like mother used to make. I have since modified the recipe,
which I still make in a Dutch oven, though I cook it in the kitchen oven
instead of over charcoal briquettes. I don’t know how they would come out using
a regular pot. I think there is something about the heavy cast iron and heavy
lid that makes then come out like they do. Here’s the recipe as I do it:
You will need
1 can cream of
chicken soup
1 large already roasted
chicken breast from your local grocery store
1 cup of
self-rising flour
1 heaping
table spoon of mayonnaise
1 can of mixed
vegetables or an equivalent amount of
frozen vegetables
(the frozen are better)
1) Place soup in the Dutch oven.
2) Add two soup cans of water
and stir up.
3) Place in the oven at 350
degrees or over enough
coals to bring it up to temp. If using
coals, also
put some on the lid. Bring it to a boil.
4) Debone the chicken and cut
into pieces.
5) Mix the mayo and flour.
6) Add enough milk to form a dough.
7) Put the chicken and vegies
in the boiling water.
8) Drop large spoons of dough
into the boiling water. It should make five or six dumplings.
9) Cook for 25 minutes or so at
350 degrees;
after 15 or twenty minutes, turn the dumplings
over in the soup.
There you have
it; a simple, quick recipe for good old fashioned chicken and dumplings just
like mother used to make, that is a Washington State mother.
