It all started one day when I was at my job on the campus of my university, thinking about the International Dinner that was coming up, hosted by the Global Student Association at the university. As I was going about my daily office duties, I was thinking about all the scrumptious global dishes I would get to sample on the evening of the anticipated event, and it got me thinking. What kinds of American foods would people from other countries want to try? The famous burger and fries? A Philly cheesesteak? Deep-dish, Chicago-style pizza? Then, it hit me: southern-style chicken and dumplings. Immediately my already-hungry mind gravitated to the thought of tender chicken and plump dumplings, smothered in a gravy-like broth, served in a bowl over warm, creamy mashed potatoes. The thought was torturous, especially since I wouldn't be leaving work for another two hours, and even then I would be stuck eating campus food... again. I was really beginning to miss home-cooked meals. I retreated straight to Google, and a few seconds later I was bombarded with hundreds of recipes claiming to be the "best chicken 'n dumplins recipe". I looked at the pictures of the first few recipes that popped up, and the one that looked the best to me at the moment was one from a blog called Iowa Girl Eats. You can find the recipe here, and I think Kristin's (the author of Iowa Girl Eats) recipe is wonderful! I'll include a quick picture of my finished dish before I dive into what I did. Doesn't it look FABULOUS?!? Alright, first of all, I did NOT fully follow the recipe. The recipe includes instructions for cooking the whole chicken and making a broth, but I did not have the time for all that because I had homework to do. It was the weekend after I had discovered the recipe online, so I still had some more important things to do on my list. :) I started out making the dumplings. The dough recipe was really simple, and I think making dumplings is even easier than making homemade noodles! I just mixed up the dough, rolled it out to maybe 1/4 inch thickness. You don't have to be super precise with rolling the dough out, just make it as thin or as thick as you want your finished dumplings to be. I made sure to use PLENTY of flour, because the dough can get very sticky. The flour will also help thicken up the broth later on when you are cooking the dumplings. That is what makes the broth more gravy-like. I just rolled out the dough, cut it into bite-sized pieces with a pizza cutter, and piled them on a plate to be kept handy when I start putting them in the broth. Next, I started making the broth. Since I didn't cook the whole chicken, I used a can of white meat chicken and pulled together a pretty flavorful broth from some things I found in the cupboard. A carton of chicken stock and a few cups of water with some Amish chicken soup base did the trick. Note: I'm not endorsing or advertising any brand of chicken broth/stock, canned chicken, or anything else, these products are just the ones I happened to have on hand in the kitchen. Once I got enough broth heated up, I started dropping the dumplings in one by one, just like the recipe said. I was surprised because the raw dumplings were very doughy and fragile, but shortly after they started boiling they got rigid, and weren't tender anymore. Then I had to boil them for 15-30 minutes or so until they became fully-cooked and tender. It was so hard to wait until they were done cooking, because I was so hungry and I had been looking forward to dumplings for a while! After the dumplings were mostly cooked, I added the canned chicken to let it warm up. At first I was worried there wouldn't be enough broth to balance out the chicken and dumplings, but it worked out in the end. The final product was just wonderful, and I know it would have been even better if I had been able to follow the recipe and make the chicken broth from scratch. Overall, I give this recipe a 5 out of 5 stars, and I will definitely be using it again! It has made a spot in my recipe box along with my other most favorite and most used recipes. :) Don't be afraid to be creative,
Nicole
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am a college student who loves being creative and resourceful. I have passions for knitting, subsistence farming, Scripture memory, and anything creative! I hope this blog will prove to be a good creative outlet for me, and inspiring for you! Archives
May 2017
Categories |