How to Make Chicken and Dumplings

nothing says comfort food quite like southern style chicken and dumplings in this video i will show you how to make the very best chicken and dumplings just like my grandma made them this recipe was handed down to me from my mama who learned how to make homemade chicken and dumplings from her mother the dumplings are made with flour and chicken broth that's it a little salt and pepper we don't use frozen dumplings here biscuit dough tortilla shells or egg noodles these dumplings are truly old school they will melt in your mouth and will taste just like they came right out of grandma's kitchen so come on in and let's get started [Music] first let's talk about the bird there is a time to use boneless skinless chicken breasts and there is a time not to use them and this is not time to pull out those boneless breasts you will need a whole chicken bone-in to create this fabulous broth you may also use chicken parts like thighs or wings or breasts or legs but make sure they contain the bones because the buns provide a rich and flavorful broth just like our grandma's made as far as time savers for cooking the chicken if you want to use your instant pot or crock pot to cook the chicken go right ahead you will likely need to add more chicken broth to the pot when you're ready to cook the dumplings but it is definitely doable without cooking the chicken directly on the stovetop but whatever you do don't use canned or rotisserie chicken and expect the same results it may be edible but it will not have the same flavor as grandma's dumplings and believe me i've tried so i know just take a whole chicken wash it well and place it into a very large pot with plenty of water i'm using an eight quart pot here and you can see the water covers the top of the chicken add a tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper to this and bring it to a rolling boil now of course you can add other seasonings as well but i keep mine pretty basic turn the heat down to medium and leave it uncovered to cook some folks also add celery and onion to this to flavor the broth but i don't because i don't find it necessary continue boiling the chicken until it is tender and falling away from the bone this will take about an hour or more depending on your stove and the size of the bird while the chicken is cooking we'll make the dumplings as for tools you will need a whisk and a fork measuring spoons salt and pepper [Music] four cups of all-purpose flour [Music] and 2 plus cups of chicken broth [Music] measure out 4 cups of all-purpose flour and make sure you don't use self-rising flour here because the dumplings will puff up too much when you cook them [Music] add the salt and pepper and use a whisk to get the lumps out [Music] now some folks don't use salt and pepper in the dumpling dough itself but i like to season each layer of my food so i'm adding salt and pepper here [Music] make a whale in the middle of the flower [Music] now i have a couple of cups of broth here but we will not use it all i know it may sound strange but the amount of broth you will need will depend on the brand of flour you are using and the amount of humidity in the air so i'm going to show you how to do this without worrying about specific measurements i'm going to show you the way my mama talk so begin by pouring a little bit of the broth into the whale and stir with a fork we want to stir until all of the broth has been absorbed by the flour [Music] now you can see we still have a lot of flour around the edges so add just a little more broth and we'll repeat the process [Music] you want to add a little broth at the time stirring until it is absorbed then check the consistency of the dough [Music] now you see we still have flour around the edge of the bowl so we'll add a little more broth [Music] do [Music] we're going for a soft but not sticky dough we don't want to add too much broth here because it will make the mixture too sticky [Music] you'll just repeat this process until all the flour has been removed from the side of the bowl use a tablespoon and add a little broth at the time to make sure that it does not become too wet and sticky once the broth has been fully absorbed by the flower it is time to go in with your hands to knead the dough knead the dough until the bowl is mostly clean if you don't want any waste just use a fork to scrape the excess from the side of the bowl and knead it into the ball of dough [Music] [Music] you'll know that the dough is at the correct consistency if it is not sticking to your hands as you pick it up the dough should be soft and pillowy now turn the dough out onto a floured surface and begin kneading you will see that i'm using the ball of my hand to push the dough forward and then pull it up from the side [Music] this takes a few minutes and you'll need to put some muscle behind it to keep it going but you'll continue this process until the dough feels smooth and it is no longer sticking to your hands keep your surface flower just keep kneading [Music] at this stage the perfect dough is soft and it is not sticky [Music] now you're going to divide the dough into three equal sections [Music] set aside two parts and take one third of the dough and return it to the floured surface it is important to make sure your entire work surface has flour on it you'll use a rolling pin to roll the dough out very thin you will need to put a little muscle behind it here because as soon as you roll and stretch the dough it will quickly shrink back a bit just keep rolling it and turning it and rolling it and turning it and rolling it and turning it some more until it has been rolled out pretty thin this takes patience it takes muscle just keep going these dumplings will puff up as you cook them so if they're not very thin it will take the dumplings a lot longer to cook and they will have a gummy texture [Music] this dough is pretty pliable you'll notice that as you work with it [Music] [Music] hope you can see the thickness of the dough here [Music] use a baking sheet lined with wax paper to layer the dumplings on making sure you don't stack them on top of one another once you have these rolled out to the thickness you desire you're going to use a pizza cutter to create the strips i usually make these a little more than one inch wide and a couple inches long [Music] your baking sheet is ready now so once you've cut out the dumplings you'll transfer them over to the baking sheet with wax paper again make sure you just keep them in single layers you don't want these to stick together you will continue the process for these other two sections of dough now these dumplings can be made ahead of time and frozen in single layers i've done this often so that i always have dumplings on hand when i'm crunched for time and i just don't feel like going through a ton of trouble for homemade chicken and dumplings if you do plan to freeze them to use later make sure you flash freeze them first on the sheet pan and once they're frozen you can transfer them to a ziploc bag to keep them inside the freezer until you're ready to use them now my chicken is done so i've already removed it from the pot and i'm starting to allow it to cool i've added a little chicken broth to the stock here now on a side note some folks like to continue cooking the deboned chicken in with the dumplings i do not do that because chicken tends to get very stringy during this process and i do not enjoy eating stringy chicken so i add the chicken back to the dumplings at the end of the process so now we're going to cook the dumplings bring the broth to a rolling boil and drop the dumplings in one piece at a time this will keep them from clumping initially the dumplings will sink to the bottom of the pot just be sure to drop them in one at a time [Music] i have about five quarts of a broth in this pot [Music] just keep dropping them in one at a time and you'll notice after a few seconds they'll begin to rise back up to the top [Music] do [Music] you want to turn the heat down to medium and continue cooking uncovered make sure you stir often to avoid sticking this is what they should look like after cooking about 15 minutes [Music] these dumplings have cooked for about 40 minutes and the broth has started to thicken you'll continue cooking these on medium uncovered and stir often once the dumplings have started to settle close to the middle and at the bottom of the pot they are almost done now you will add one can of water to two cans of cream of chicken soup and stir well to combine you'll add this mixture to the dumplings and stir now you'll add one stick of butter this is going to create a creamy and velvety broth stir this and cook uncovered for about three more minutes [Music] now you'll notice the broth is rich it's creamy it's velvety [Music] we'll need to add the chicken [Music] i've deboned the chicken and cut it into chunks i typically don't shred chicken for chicken and dumplings because it becomes stringy so i just pour the chunks of chicken back into the dumpling mixture and give it a big stir [Music] do [Music] once you've done this allow the dumplings to sit for about 15 to 20 minutes before serving this just gives us time for all the flavors to combine and you'll have a delicious pot of mouth-watering chicken and dumplings [Music] we hope you love this recipe leave us a comment and don't forget to subscribe to our channel thank you so much for watching new south table [Music] you

Channel: New South Table

Views: 37,945

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Id: yksbwKc8ORg

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 09 2020