Chicken and Dumplings from Scratch

When I was a kid, I can remember a couple of my friends' mothers making chicken and dumplings regularly. I still remember Mrs. Altizer whipping together a batch in no time at all one Sunday after church. Mrs. Kerschner made dumplings to serve with mashed potatoes on a week night!

The first time I ever made chicken and dumplings was after I'd been married for about five years. I used a recipe called "Chicken Fricassee and Dumplings" from a Betty Crocker cookbook that was a gift when I first got married in 1983. The ex-husband didn't like them because the chicken was still on the bones. I didn't like them because the dumplings were like biscuits - they weren't like the slippery dumplings I remember from my youth.

For years, the slippery (noodle-like) dumplings eluded me. I would occasionally make the drop dumplings, but I never found a recipe that told me what I was doing wrong. I had to satisfy that slippery-dumpling-craving with occasional visits to Cracker Barrel.

When I saw the picture for this recipe on Pinterest, I knew I had found the dumplings of my memories. The recipe, from the Tasty Kitchen, is easy to follow and a bit different from standard noodles. When I make homemade noodles, the dough is very stiff. I mistakenly used the food processor the first time I made these dumplings but it wasn't necessary. I used the pastry cutter (sorry Alton Brown) to blend the butter into the dry ingredients and it's easy to stir the milk in with a silicon spatula.

The dough will be very soft and you need to use a lot of flour with this recipe to keep it from sticking to the work surface. Someday, when I'm all grown up, I'll remember to buy a pastry mat. Just a few light strokes with the rolling pin and I had a uniform thickness of about 1/8". Uniformity is NOT required when you cut the dumplings with a knife or rolling pizza cutter. Useless trivia: Cracker Barrel uses a special tool to insure uniform dumplings. The prep cook uses a sugar packet to size the cuts.

This day happened to be "Harry's making homemade chicken stock" day. I pulled about four cups from the huge, simmering stock pot and poured it into the smaller pot, added 4 cups of water and about one pound of cooked chicken.

Once the stock and meat was at a strong simmer, I added the dumplings. Go ahead and add the leftover flour from the table - it will help thicken the stock or broth into a nice stew-ish consistency. Simmer for about 20 minutes, taste checking the broth and dumplings.

I forgot and added my black pepper before I took the picture. I love lots of black pepper on anything creamy, so adjust accordingly.

You can use leftover chicken or maybe a deli-rotisserie chicken, along with packaged broth or chicken stock to speed up the process. Because we already had our chicken stock and picked meat, these homemade chicken and dumplings took me about 40 minutes to make.

Chicken and Dumplings from Scratch - serves 6

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup of milk (you might need a little less)
2 quarts chicken broth OR 1 quart of chicken stock and 1 quart of water
1 pound cooked, boneless chicken

While you are mixing the dumplings, bring the broth to a strong simmer over medium heat.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender, pair of knives, or your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Gently stir in 3/4 cup of milk. The dough should be very soft, like biscuits, so add the remaining milk until you have the proper consistency. It will be sticky!

Spread a generous amount of all-purpose flour on your work surface and dust your rolling pin liberally with flour. Pour/scrape the dumpling dough onto the flour. Use light strokes to roll the dough into a uniform thickness, about 1/8". You might have to dust your rolling pin with flour more than once.

Using a knife or a pizza roller (my choice because it was so fast!), cut the dough into square-ish shapes about 2 inches by 2 inches. Don't worry about perfection - the dumplings will change shape while they are cooking and won't be the same size no matter what you do!

I use a slotted spatula to transfer the dumplings from the table into the simmering broth. You want to add most of the flour you have left-over from the rolling to thicken the broth. Stir the dumplings gently and add the chicken meat.

Continue to simmer the dumplings for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Usually, I add a few chopped veggies to our chicken and dumplings. Diced carrots and celery add a great flavor. Simply saute them in a splash of extra virgin olive oil or canola oil in the bottom of the stock pot before you add the broth. I like to saute the carrots and celery just until they start to color to add more flavor to the broth. They will finish cooking as you simmer the dumplings.

Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs - March 2012 Daring Cooks Challenge

I don't know if I'm going to be able to upload any other pics from this Daring Kitchen Challenge! I switched to Picasa over the weekend and I'm having techie issues and am not happy. BUT - the above photo is our entry into the March 2012 Daring Cooks Challenge - Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs. I might be able to add more pix later.

The March, 2012 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Carol, a/k/a Poisonive – and she challenged us all to learn the art of Braising! Carol focused on Michael Ruhlman’s technique and shared with us some of his expertise from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”.

Short ribs - lots of flavor but difficult to cook to edible status, unless you braise. We have avoided short ribs because we generally associate ribs with grilling. The couple of time we've mistakenly tried to cook beef short ribs with our traditional techniques - par-boil or slow-roasting, then finishing on the grill - we've been left with tough, impossible-to-chew chunks with no flavor nor tenderness.

The exciting part about joining the Daring Kitchen was to learn new cooking techniques. So, when this month focused on learning to properly braise and our minds automatically go to meat, we were hooked. In all, while this recipe is heavy on the time commitment, it's rather light in the labor department. Yes, you need to clean and chop a few veggies. Yes, you need to let the ribs simmer in the oven for about 4 hours. However, the fall-off-the-bone tenderness will convince you that you need a go-to recipe for short-ribs when they go on sale.

We made very few changes to the recipe for Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs from Carol (and probably Michael Ruhlman). I bought the last two packages of short ribs available (no, I'm lame - Kroger doesn't cut short ribs in-store) and our meat was around 2 1/2 pounds rather than three pounds. We only used about 12 ounces of fresh, sliced mushrooms rather than the pound suggested because Harry and I are still learning to embrace the fungus. AND, we added about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar to the sauce near the end because ours turned out very earthy and dark and we preferred to brighten it up. Oh - and we served it over rice. The common recommendation is to serve this recipe over mashed potatoes, buttered noodles or polenta. Sorry - we love rice!


Our impressions of the challenge:

* Texture: 5 out of 5! The beef short ribs were incredibly tender, regardless of my feelings as to how they were cut. The meat fell from the bone and I was able to cut through the chunks with my fork. The fat was cooked away during the braise.

*Technique: If I go from the mindset of an inexperienced cook, I have to give this a 3 out of 5. In all honesty, the technique for slow-braising is going to frighten off a cook who's not very experienced in the kitchen. They might not have a pot that will work for the braising method. They might be frightened by the length of time in the oven and not believe the adage that they can just 'walk away' while the meat slow-cooks in the oven. With our kitchen skills, this technique and recipe were a breeze to follow. (Well, I might still be lacking in the searing department.)

*Taste: I  think I'm being unfair to give the taste a 4 out of 5, but I know that it's our personal tastes. The honey, during the slow-braising process, cut through the acidity of the wine and the tomato paste, leaving a pleasant but not syrupy sweet taste in the braising liquid. However, we finish almost every dish with a splash or two of some type of vinegar to brighten up the taste. I have to agree, with the exception of the mushrooms (because I'm trying to learn to embrace the fungus), the portion that I reheated the next day was delicious.

You can visit The Daring Kitchen for the complete recipe for Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs and more.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake from The Wright Taste

No, I didn't take this beautiful photo of a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake - all credit for that goes to KimberlyVardeman over at Wikimedia Commons. I honestly can't remember if we ever did take a picture of any of the dozens of these yummy cakes we made.

For the most part, we always said "if it can be baked, we can make it!" Very rarely did I ever tell a customer "no, I can't do it." We did turn down requests for sour dough bread because of the storage issue and I experimented (badly) with pumpernickel bread. So, when a man asked if we could bake a pineapple upside-down cake, of course the answer was "yes."

I started searching through my cookbook collection. A lot of the newer books didn't even have a recipe for this heritage cake. I struck gold with "Blue Ribbon Recipes", published in 1968. When Gramma passed away in 2004, I received her collection of cookbooks and this book was in there. I was a little surprised to see it listed and available on Amazon. If you have an appreciation for heritage recipes, this book is a steal at $8.95. "Blue Ribbon Recipes" is a compilation of county fair prize-winning recipes from throughout the country during the fifties and sixties. Some of the ingredients might make your inner foodie say "eewww" but I've been able to modify successfully.

A pineapple upside-down cake is basically a moist, vanilla-flavored cake baked in an iron skillet that has been layered with melted butter, brown sugar, pineapple rings and maraschino cherries for color. It's a simple cake that comes out of the pan already decorated. One word of warning - don't be tempted to let the cake cool in the pan before turning it onto a plate. The brown-sugar glaze will stay in the pan!

This recipe doubles easily in order to make a 9 x 13 inch sheet cake. The original customer came back the very next week and ordered TWO 9 x 13 cakes. It will be a little less thick than those baked in a skillet, but it will be just as moist. I've also baked the batter strictly as cupcakes or cake layers (double the recipe for a 2-layer cake) and it is the most moist, delicious cake I've ever made. Beats any box ever!

So, Kathy Poe of Placerville, Calif. who won a ribbon at the El Dorado County Fair: if you are still out there, thank you for this recipe.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

1/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
6 canned, sliced pineapple rings in natural juice, drained
6 maraschino cherries
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, softened**
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt 1/3 cup of butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium low heat. When melted, remove from heat and sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the butter. Arrange the pineapple slices and cherries over the brown sugar/butter mixture and set the pan aside.

In a medium mixing bowl (or your stand mixer), combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix thoroughly. Add the softened butter, milk and vanilla extract.*** Mix on low speed for 2 minutes or "300 vigorous strokes by hand". Add the egg and mix for 2 more minutes.

Pour the batter over the fruit and bake in the preheated oven 40-50 minutes or until a tester is clean. Immediately invert the cake onto the serving plate. Allow to cool to room temperature before serving (the caramelized sauce will stick to you and burn!)

**Ms. Poe used "soft shortening" rather than butter in her recipe.

***I know that current cake gurus recommend creaming the sugar and fat, then alternately adding the dry and wet ingredients, ending with the dry. I used my stand mixer but figured if Ms. Poe could win a ribbon with this recipe, I should probably follow her method.