Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Chicken and Dumplings

I have been making this for many years and it is a favorite of Amby and Zac's. Per his request, I made it for Zac's birthday dinner and decided I would post it. It has been in my head all this time, so I will try to communicate it so that it actually makes sense.

I make the dumplings out of bisquick and buttermilk, but you can make them from canned biscuit dough. It is easier and cuts down on the mess, but, to me, they just aren't as good. I do not think this "recipe" has any redeeming nutritional value, but it is very high in yumminess and comfort.


Chicken and Dumplings

4 chicken breasts
2 cans cream of chicken soup
flour or cornstarch for thickening
3 cups of Bisquick
1 cup buttermilk
salt & pepper to taste

Cook chicken in 8 cups of boiling water until tender. Remove chicken from pot and allow to cool.
Strain water and return water to pot. Stir in chicken soup. Heat to boiling. In a small bowl, add about 1/2 cup flour or cornstarch to about 1-1/2 cups water and stir thoroughly until smooth. Add this to soup so that it becomes thick. Repeat if necessary to achieve the desired thickness.

In a medium bowl, stir bisquick and buttermilk together until stiff. Drop one spoonful at a time into the boiling soup mixture. This makes alot of dumplings, by the way. When the pot becomes full of dumplings, push the new dumplings underneath the first layer you dropped in that are still cooking. Boil for about 15 minutes, uncovered. They will puff up while they cook. Shred chicken and add to pot. Heat through. (Note: Some of the dumplings will dissipate into the soup. That is why the dumpling mixture needs to be as thick as possible.)


The bisquick and buttermilk mixture should look like this:
Drop by scant spoonfuls into boiling soup mixture and cook for about 15 minutes:


For Wonder Boy's birthday dinner, I served this with fried okra, field peas, and sliced tomatoes. We finished feeling agonizingly full, yet imperturbably comforted.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you use Angel food chicken in this recipe?

Vickie said...

Yes, but with a note of caution. Before you use it, check the product information for the words "chopped", "reformed", or "reshaped". If you make chicken and dumplings, please take pictures.

Amby said...

That makes my mouth water. About a year ago I realized, duh, I can make these myself and don't have to wait until my birthday. I made it like every other week until Nathan got a bit tired of them. Another note, these are even better leftover! I'm going to have to make them now.

Anonymous said...

Hello .. I was going to cook this for my wife but after I printed it out and read it ... I found it kind of incomplete . here is what I mean ... you say "Cook chicken in boiling water until tender. Remove chicken from pot and allow to cool.
Strain water and return water to pot. Stir in chicken soup". You do not say how much water to start with to cook the chicken. Thanks

Vickie said...

I'm sorry! I added about how many cups of water I use to my post above, which is about 8. I had never written down any ingredient amounts for this recipe before I did this post. It is very forgiving, though. The amounts don't have to be exact.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you and your wife enjoy this recipe.