Chicken and buttermilk dumplings

by: Sue

I love the tang of buttermilk in these rolled dumplings. Since you use self-rising flour, they have some fluffiness to them without being too biscuit-like. Chicken and dumplings have been my favorite comfort food since I was a little kid. There are lots of recipes around to short cut the dumpling preparation but I don’t like any of them. Flour tortillas or canned biscuits don’t cut it as dumplings at the Barron house, we want made from scratch dumplings and a whole chicken cooked until tender. I like to follow Julia Child’s instructions when boiling a chicken–cover with water and bring to a boil. On top of the water will be the scummy stuff you don’t want in the broth, so you pour off all the first boil water, and start all over again with clean water. That way you don’t have to waste a lot of time skimming off the crud and your broth is clear and beautiful.

1 small chicken
Water for boiling the chicken, to cover
Salt to taste
3-4 celery sticks, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
2 cups self rising flour
3 – 4 Tablespoons butter shortening or butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
white pepper
Kosher salt
parsley or dried chives

Slowly simmer chicken in soup pot, adding salt to taste. When tender, remove chicken from the broth and remove the meat, cutting into small pieces and returning to the broth.

Pour flour into bowl. Cut in shortening or butter with pastry cutter and stir in parsley or chives if desired. Make a hole in the middle of the flour mixture and add buttermilk with 1 egg gently beaten into it to form a doughy consistency (like biscuit dough). Sprinkle flour on cutting board. Roll dough into a thin sheet and cut into squares. Let rest for 10 minutes. Add celery, onion, and carrot to broth. Simmer on medium heat. Drop dumplings one square at a time into boiling broth. Add salt, white pepper and black pepper to taste and simmer until tender, uncovered and unstirred. If you stir this mixture, your dumplings will disintegrate.

Note: You can stew chicken breasts in chicken broth if you do not wish to cook a whole chicken but the chicken flavor will not be as intense and you won’t have the gelatin from the bones to thicken the broth.

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