I got a dutch oven for Christmas from my in-laws and after I almost squished my left foot with the thing, I’ve been looking for things to
make in the red behemoth. I revisited Boeuf Bourguingnon and I have no clue how I managed to make that without a dutch oven. I must be that good.
In addition to the roast I bought and cut up for the boeuf–say it like this: boof–I bought this huge pack of chicken and I had no idea what I was going to do with it other than cook the stuff. Last night I just started tossing stuff in the pot and accidentally made something damn tasty.
Chicken and Dumplings.
The thing you should know before I start with what I did is I can’t remember having ever made chicken and dumplings so I was extra surprised when what I made didn’t suck a huge lollipop.
Taste Like Crazy Chicken and Dumplings
Chicken and broth ingredients:
- 6.5 quart dutch oven–Maybe you can use something smaller but that’s the size I have.
- 8 piece package of chicken parts: wings, legs, breasts and thighs
- 4oz salt pork–diced as best you can [I used salt pork since that’s what I had on hand but bacon might work.]
- 1/2 large onion–diced
- 2 carrots–sliced into medallions
- 1 stalk of celery–diced
- 2 cloves of garlic–squished
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- some olive oil
- 4 cups of chicken stock
- 2-3 Tb cornstarch
Dumplings ingredients:
- 1 cup of flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 Tb butter–cold
- 1/2 cup milk–cold
Directions for chicken and broth:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Add about a tablespoon of good olive oil to your dutch oven and turn your heat to medium. When the oil is just about to smoke, toss in your salt pork and cook until as much fat is rendered as possible and the pork is brown. Remove to a paper towel. Pat the chicken pieces with paper towel and place a couple of pieces in the dutch oven skin side down. Continue until all sides of all of the chicken has been browned. Remove chicken to same paper towel as the pork.
Add onion, carrots and celery and cook until the onions just start to become translucent. Add thyme, bay leaf, pepper and garlic. Give it a quick stir. Place chicken into the dutch oven with the dark meat going in first and finishing with the breasts. Add your stock until the bottom pieces are covered and the stock come up to about 1/2 way on the breasts. Adjust the amount of stock if you need more or less. Bring everything to a boil, plop the lid on and put it in the oven.
Cook for 30-45 minutes or until the chicken breast read 155°F on an instant read thermometer.
Remove the chicken to a container and start on the dumplings.
Directions for dumplings:
Add all of the ingredients to a bowl and use a fork to cut up the butter until it’s in itty bitty pieces. Use a plastic spatula to make sure everything’s well mixed. Turn the dutch oven on medium low. Use a teaspoon–the kind you eat with–to drop dough into the broth. I ended up with enough dumplings that the top of the dutch oven was covered. Put on the lid, knock the heat down to low and cook–don’t take off the lid–for 15 minutes. You know they’re done when they’ve all floated to the top and when you cut through the middle, it’s fluffy and not doughy. Remove dumplings and set aside
Take the cornstarch and add 1/4 – 1/3 cup of cold water and stir it around. Add that to the broth and stir well until it’s as thick as you want. You may have to add more cornstarch. It depends on what you’re looking for.
Add a couple of dumplings to a bowl, add some pulled apart chicken to that and cover with the broth.
