Chicken and dumplings (biscuity, Southern-style)

here's a slightly gussied up version of classic southern U.S chicken and dumplings I made this for company the other day quite a thing for a Brisk fall evening I'm especially happy with how the dumplings themselves turned out lots of flavor in there nice light texture traditionally you'd start by just boiling a whole chicken in water to make chicken soup but I'm going with the far more convenient and consistent boneless skinless thighs about a pound and a half 700 grams that might not sound like a ton of meat for like six portions but remember there's no bone no skin that's all net weight and I'm just snipping each thigh into maybe four pieces I'm gonna cook this until the meat is falling apart so the chunks we eat will actually be even smaller but if you don't cut them up front you're going to get super long strings of meat that I think are undesirable I'm shortening the meat fibers here and I'm using scissors instead of a knife so that I don't have to wash The Cutting Board now I'm going to start this more like a stew than a soup enough Pepper for every piece some mixed dried herbs enough salt for every piece and then enough flour to coat like half a cup 50 or 60 grams and toss this is how I do breadings whenever possible season the food instead of the flour or the breadcrumbs or whatever it's much easier to eyeball the seasoning quantity on the meats than on a pile of flour Heat a good film of oil if you have bacon grease or some such this would be a great time to use that instead you really got to lay the pieces into one at a time if you just dump them in all at once they're going to congeal into a giant slimy meatball because I've completely filled my pot with meat and because I'm on a wheat gas stove I am on high heat but you be conservative if you don't know your stove you don't want anything to burn nor do you want to try to flip those pieces until they have browned well on the bottom if they aren't Brown they're going to stick really bad a wooden spoon is definitely the best way to nudge the pieces off the pan you can really dig down underneath them without scratching the pan once I've got those flipped I will run over here and cut eight ounces to 27 grams of mushrooms in half the biggest ones I'll quarter but they're going to shrink a ton oops I got a little burning happening over here that could absolutely dissolve in the soup and spoil the flavor the solution is to grab a wet paper towel with tongs and scrub the burned spot clean better yet don't burn anything at all these pieces are brown enough I'll push them over to one side and throw in my mushrooms to get a little color on them I might even push the pot a little bit off the heat so that the chicken doesn't burn the heat is only under the mushroom side now I keep coming back to green onions as my favorite form of onion these days two bunches lose the roots they're easy to cut they give you some onion and they give you some nice bright green garnish I will Reserve said garnish for later and throw the whites in with the mushrooms just give them a couple of minute Head Start and if you're thinking now's about the time Adam would totally deglaze with an entire bottle of white wine well you'd be right water or stock would be fine instead I've got a pound of carrots here thick sliced carrots take about the same time to Stew soft as chunks of dark meat chicken do so I'll get those in right away then a whole carton of chicken stock remember it's supposed to be more of a soup than the stew so lots of liquid a pinch or two of salt to start with we can always add more at the end maybe I'll grab what's left of this garlic head cut off the root ends bash to loosen the skin and I'll just throw those smashed cloves in there whole they'll just melt over the long cooking stir bring to a boil reduce to a spirited simmer and then you're going to cover and do something else for 45 minutes it's not a super long cook but it's still not as fast of a meal as hellofresh is with the holidays around the corner man is hellofresh gonna help with weeknight cooking around here skip the lines at the grocery stores save on the cost of takeout hellofresh is about 25 percent less expensive than takeout on average several nice chilly weather options there but this pasta is a favorite of ours and you'll see that it takes less than half an hour because because I'm doing this in one shot and my camera can only record 30 minutes at a time got all my pre-portioned ingredients here which minimize waste we're on the vegetarian meal plan now even though we're not vegetarians we just want to eat more vegetables and hellofresh helps us hit that goal but there's kid friendly meal plans Choice protein plans all kinds of options and you can change or skip delivery days from the app if you need help with holiday meals you can order breakfasts for company or charcuterie boards desserts order those extras on top of your normal meal deliveries try it yourself go to hellofresh.com and use code adamragusia70 for 70 off plus free shipping 70 off with my link and code in the description thank you hellofresh after 30 to 45 minutes of simmering the chicken and the carrots are almost tender so I will now add in this 12 ounce 340 gram bag of green beans just cut those into spoonable size pieces add a simmer these will take half an hour max to soften we want to drop our dumplings when everything is 15 minutes from being done I've got a lot of fresh Rosemary and Sage here very cozy flavors I'll chop that up nice and fine because I'm putting it in my dumplings usually the dumplings are kind of bland and they're flavored by the broth I think it's kind of fun to reverse that and what's crazy good inside the dumplings is lemon zest just try it the juice will put in the broth later on that's what happens when you watch the camera monitor instead of watching reality close one regusia if you have cake flour in the house use that instead of all-purpose but all-purpose will be okay about two cups 230 grams cake flour is lighter than AP less protein softer dumpling texture I'd say two teaspoons of baking powder because we're making Southern Style Chicken and Dumplings where the dumplings are more like biscuits than noodles I think half a teaspoon of salt is enough but you could do a little more garlic powder on the inside of the dumplings that really taste good just trust me in with the herbs and the lemon zest then I'll grab two or three tablespoons of butter melt it Pour it in and then mix if you mix in the fat before you mix in the water you coat lots of the flour in fat you're gonna block some gluten development and get super tender dumplings also for tender dumplings you don't want to mix up this batter until right before you're ready to drop it into the soup now just mix in just enough milk or water to make this come together into a Shaggy sloppy dough like a cup of liquid Max it is absolutely key to not over hydrate or over mix this it should be a mess you should just barely be able to roll this into little balls the fault lines created by uneven mixing will get you a nice crumbly texture don't go any bigger than these Balls by the way because they're going to double in size when they cook just drop them into the broth make sure the heat is high enough that you've got a low boil you need that heat to activate the baking powder in there and get these to puff up put the lid on so the tops of The Dumpling Steam and don't pee week in there for at least 10 minutes while I wait here's my fancy Finishing Touch not traditional at least not outside of Louisiana I'm going to thicken and enrich my soup with a liaison five or six eggs I'll fish out the yolks and eat the whites for breakfast tomorrow in classic French cooking I believe the typical ratio is one part egg yolks to three parts cream mix that up smooth and we will add that little custard at the last second the dumplings are done when they look done you can always tear one open it should look like bread on the inside not dough if you overcook them they get very dense so 10 or 15 minutes max I will now reduce my heat until I see no more bubbles it is now safe for me to stir in my liaison people say that you have to do this whole tempering maneuver but if you stir it in briskly off the boil it's going to be fine you might have to turn the heat back up ever so slightly to cook this you should see the liquid noticeably thicken just a little when the eggs cook of course if you overcook them the eggs are going to curdle the soup will look gritty that there is a perfect velvety broth you could just use cream straight cream is safer but you need a lot more cream to achieve the same textural effect and you wouldn't get the extra flavor and the color of the eggs heat off to be safe with the eggs and now I will taste for seasoning needs a little more salt and I'll squeeze in maybe half of my lemon if I hadn't used the white wine I'd probably do the whole lemon and I've got my reserved onion greens to stir in at the last second thereby keeping them green and pretty there you go slightly elevated cold weather comfort food I love how the stew-like flower coating we did on the chicken kind of melts into the broth and merges the elements together and I'm so happy with these dumplings the strong herb and lemon and garlic flavor in there is just insane not exactly a low cal dinner but we did go very heavy on vegetables relative to the other elements please don't take my version of this dish as being traditional there's all kind kinds of traditional ways to make chicken and dumplings and maybe we'll do one of those another day

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 419,529

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Id: JgPfKZovZhA

Length: 9min 6sec (546 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 10 2022