Chicken and Dumplings

Directions

1. Place a whole thawed chicken (that is rinsed and cavity cleared) into a large stockpot.
2. Cover with water.
3. Add unchopped onion, celery, and carrots to help flavor the broth.
4. Bring the water to boiling and cook the chicken for 1 hour (or until done throughout).
5. While the chicken is cooking, prepare the dumplings using the easy buttermilk biscuit recipe from the bread section but do not roll out.
6. Flour the ball of dough, wrap in Saran wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to roll and cut the dumplings
7. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove from the whole chicken from the pot and set aside in a large bowl to cool.
8. Pour the broth through a sieve to strain out veggies, chicken particles, etc.
9. Pour broth back into stockpot and discard the cooked vegetables and other particles
10. Heat the broth back up to a slow, rolling boil.
11. While it is coming to a boil, finish the dumplings.
12. Remove dough from the refrigerator and place on a floured surface.
13. Roll dough to ½ inch thickness and, using a knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into 1½ by 1½ inch squares (or smaller or larger as you prefer).
14. These dumplings will puff a little but will, for the most part, remain flat and easily cook all the way through the dumpling.
15. Remove 1 cup of the broth from the pot and set aside (in case you need to make a slurry to thicken the broth prior to serving).
16. Gently lower the squares into the brother one at a time.
17. Gently move the dumplings around the pot to make room for more dumplings as you add them.
18. Once the last of the dumplings have cooked at the higher heat for 10 minutes, reduce heat to a simmer to cook further.
19. Periodically stir gently to keep dumplings from sticking to the pot or each other.
20. As they finish cooking you will see dumplings begin to rise to the top of the broth
21. Your chicken should have cooled enough by now to handle (if not refrigerate it for a few minutes).
22. Remove and discard the skin.
23. Remove chicken from bones and cut or pull into bite size pieces and place into a large bowl.
24. You will add the chicken to the pot once the dumplings are done so the chicken doesn’t fall apart.
25. Discard bones (unless you save them to prepare bone broth)
26. Once the dumplings are done (they will be floating but you can pull one out and taste it to make sure it is no longer doughy).
27. Also taste the broth and add additional salt and/or pepper as needed.
28. If you added enough flour to your dumplings during the rolling process, your broth may be thickening on its own.
29. If not, and mealtime is drawing near, quickly prepare a flour slurry to pour into the pot that will help the broth thicken more quickly.
30. Take the cup of chicken broth set aside earlier and put ¼ cup of flour in it.
31. Using a stick blender, hand mixer, Bullet blender, etc.
32. Blend the slurry until there are no remaining flour lumps.
33. Pour the slurry into the pot and gently stir to incorporate into the full pot.
34. Allow the mixture to simmer another 10 to 15 minutes or until it reaches the thickness you desire