Farmer Cheese Dumplings - How to Dumpling a Soup, Stew or Sauce - Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with farmer cheese dumplings that's right I'm going to show you the simplest easiest dumpling recipe I know and just so everyone's clear we're talking about American style dumplings and this technique will work no matter what you decide to simmer these on top of whether it's a sauce or a soup or a stew and just in case you can't decide I'm going to show you what I used which depending on how thick you make it could be a salsa soup or a stew so that's what we're going to do and to get started we will melt a lot of butter over medium high heat in some kind of saucepan or skillet that's at least two and a half or three inches deep and we will also need something with a lid and then once our butter is hot we'll go ahead and toss in some chopped up boneless skinless chicken thigh or of course the meat of your choice and we will cook that stirring for a few minutes or until we get a little bit of Browning on that meat all right we don't need a lot but we do want some and not only is this going to help us achieve a gorgeous color but just imagine the flavor going into that butter come on I said imagine it that's better and then once we're happy with how that's looking we'll go ahead and toss in a diced onion and we will cook that stirring for a few minutes or until the onions soften and start to turn translucents which is going to take a few minutes and while that's happening we can go ahead and season this up a little bit with some kosher salt or the salt of your choice some freshly ground black pepper and of course a little bit of cayenne and we'll stir that in and we'll wait for sauteed onions to do what sauteing onions do which as I mentioned is get soft and translucent and once that's happened we can go ahead and toss in our flower and we will stir that in and continue cooking for another two minutes or so to form yes a roux r-o-u-x and I'm adding about a quarter cup but how much you have depends on how thick you want this okay if you wanted this thicker you could add twice that much or split the difference totally up to you I mean you guys are after all the kings of what's simmering underneath your dumplings and no you don't have to use any flour but no matter how much you use once that roux is cooked for a few minutes we can go ahead and transfer in our chicken broth or stock preferably homemade but that's not a deal breaker and we don't judge in front of you and we'll go ahead and stir that in and because my chicken broth was cold and the roux was hot there will be no lumps and that is just science I mean you can try to get lumps and you won't be able to so we will stir that in and wait for this to come up to a simmer and while we're waiting if we're going to use it we can toss in our carrots and celery and or any other vegetables you're in the mood for but anyway what's going to happen is this is going to start to simmer and once it does we're going to lower our heat down to medium low or whatever we'll maintain a nice steady simmer and then because I remembered I had it I'm also going to toss in some freshly picked thyme leaves which are never not good with any kind of stewed chicken thing and then all we need to do is simmer this on medium low for about 45 minutes or until this mixture reduces down a little bit and thickens up nicely and if everything goes according to plan it should look something like this and as far as what to call this we could go with sauce or gravy or soup or stew depending on how thick we make it which again depends on how much flour you put in and or how fiery reduces down but since these dumplings are starch bombs I don't really want this too too thick so for me this is perfect and what we'll do at this point is reduce our heat down to low but we mix up this extremely fast and easy farmer cheese dumpling batter which is going to start with some farmer cheese which is basically a very flavorful very Tangy sort of dry cottage cheese and hopefully you can find it but if you can't use any soft cheese you want or you can actually use milk with some grated sharp cheese like a cheddar and we will give you some different options in the written recipe and then to this I'm going to add a little bit of finely minced Rosemary which I love the flavor of in these but of course we could have just used more time or any other herb we're into I'm also going to add some freshly ground black pepper a big old pinch of salt then we'll go ahead and drop in one large whole egg and we'll take our spoon and give this a mix until everything's nice and smooth before we add our last ingredient some self-rising flour and as you know whenever we're making dumplings and biscuits and things like that I love to use the self-rising flour since it has the baking powder and salt milled right in and it's super fine but as always on the written recipe we'll explain how to make your own with all-purpose flour and it only takes two seconds and then we'll take our spoon and mix this until we form what you could call a very stiff batter or a very loose dough and then once that's mixed we will grab a second tablespoon and then we'll use both of those to transfer in one big heaping tablespoon on top of our simmering chicken mixture but not quite yet because once we head back to the stove what we want to do is raise our heat to medium to bring our mixture back to a nice steady simmer and I also at this point like to stir in some green onions which I love but if you don't don't and that's it once our mixture is simmering like I said we'll transfer in a big heaping tablespoon and add a one batch of this stuff you're going to get six dumplings and by the way you're supposed to be using the second spoon to push the batter off the first spoon but I'm always afraid of blocking the camera so I was just trying to do it with one spoon which is probably going to make them look a little rougher on the edges but you know what it doesn't matter and I'm really not even sure why I'm trying to fix these up because as you'll see as these cook they really puff up and expand and they pretty much look exactly the same no matter how neat they are when you make them so please try to relax okay a dumpling can smell fear and that's it once we've completed the dumplification we will perform the old Cayenne cover so I'm going to go ahead and shake a little bit of cayenne over the top for color and flavor and most importantly good luck and then we will cover this and we'll reduce our heat to medium low and we will let those dumplings simmer and steam for exactly 15 minutes without any peaking or stirring and as those cooked they're going to get bigger and bigger and eventually hopefully look something like this and no I didn't turn my heat up it only looks like it because those dumplings got bigger and there's less space for that liquid to kind of bubble up between them so it does look a little more severe but anyway that's it after 50 minutes we will remove the lid and fair warning as soon as you do they're going to start to deflate which is fine and totally normal speaking of which as usual we should probably give this a taste you know to check the seasonings and if you have to adjust especially for salt go ahead but mine was tasting just about right so I went ahead and pulled this off the stove and I finished up with a few sliced green onions at which point I took way way too many pictures because I just don't enjoy hot freshly made food but after that while these were still sort of warm I went ahead and played it up and I finished up with a few more green onions and as far as portion size goes this recipe could make six small portions or three medium portions or two giant Chef John sized portions but I'm gonna try to be good and just have one and after taking even more pictures I grabbed a spoon and dug in and that my friends I think is the epitome of simple fast easy comfort food all right just that chicken mixture is worth the price of admission which is some kind of hybrid between a sauce and a stew and a soup so just that part warms your soul but when you eat it with these very simple primitive dumplings it is almost impossible to feel anxious warm and cozy of course but anxious no you know these are not those big puffy Airy bready dumplings which are fine but this style of cheese dumpling is definitely denser and moister but at the same time still very light and tender okay this is still sort of like a bread dumpling but we're getting a little bit of a pasta like feel right maybe sort of like a very very light perfectly made gnocchi or not quite that dense but vaguely reminiscent and while the flavor is very mild since farmer cheese is very mild besides as I mentioned that little bit of tanginess you could definitely dial up the flavors by using the sharper cheese or you could do a combo of cream cheese and cheddar or even a goat cheese would work nicely and yes of course you could use an ice creamy feta although in that case be careful with the salt amounts oh and pro tip if you finish your dumpling before the rest of the stuff in the bowl is gone just simply transfer one more in and carry on I know you're thinking you said you were only going to have one well actually what I said was I was going to try to have one and I did I tried and I failed so I'm having to and if I'm being totally honest this is the first time I've ever written these ingredient amounts down since I normally just wing it and it comes out different every time which if you haven't heard is one of the most fun Parts about cooking anyway what I'm trying to say is feel free to experiment and not just with different kinds of cheeses and herbs and seasoning okay you can also experiment with more or less flour since that will of course affect the texture of the final product but no matter what you do do not overthink this it is not a recipe that should be overthunk okay I'm sure you overthink lots of other things in life so give yourself a little break but anyway that's it my extremely simple method for making farmer cheese dumplings which will work beautifully on any kind of simmering flavorful liquid including some simple can soup or you throw it in a pot and by the time it's come up to a boil your cheese dumpling batter is ready in about 15 minutes later you're not just eating soup you're eating soup with dumplings which I think is a really nice way to eat soup for all those reasons and more I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts multiple written recipe and much more info as usual as always enjoy foreign

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 349,455

Keywords: Dumplings, Farmer, Cheese, chicken, stew, soup, gravy, comfort, easy, fast, cheap, recipe, chef, john, food, wishes

Id: FnneATjcJYA

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022