Dum’s Chicken and Dumplings

What or whom is Dum you ask? Dum was my great-grandmother on my mom’s side.

Dum was an amazing lady; tough, loving and kind, always there with a warm hug and food made with love. I always looked forward to visiting her when I was little. I remember sitting in the window seat in her kitchen watching old reruns of The Outer Limits while she would be cooking up a storm. Her memory lives strong with our family and is truly missed by all who knew her.

Dum’s chicken and dumplings is kind of famous in our family. It is the one dish 3 generations can agree is a true comfort food. I hope that this is something you can share with your family and friends and becomes part of enduring memories for you as well.

We always start by making our chicken and stock. If you don’t have time to do this your self, you can used canned chicken and stock, but I suggest trying it homemade at least once. This recipe will serve 4-6 adults.

Start by seasoning 2 pounds of chicken with salt, pepper and soul seasoning. If you don’t have soul seasoning available in your area, just use season salt, but be careful of the salt levels in the stock. Once the chicken is seasoned, place it in the bottom of your large soup pot over medium-high heat and let cook for 3 minutes per side. It will stick. That’s ok, you’re just going to shred it later any way…plus it adds flavor 🙂

After the Chicken has been seared, add 1 cup of water, or you can use white wine to deglaze your pot. Once the pot is deglazed, add 6 cups of water and 1-2 tablespoons of dried parsley flakes. Should look something like this.

Let the chicken simmer over low heat for 1-2 hours. Turn off heat and let cool enough that you can work with the chicken. Once cooled, use 2 forks to shred the chicken in the stock. Return to stove top and turn heat to high. Bring stock and chicken to rolling boil.

Dumpling Time!

Dumplings in this case are just a thick homemade type noodle. They are so freaking amazing! Start with 2 cups of all purpose flour in a medium bowl. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add 1 large egg.

Using your fingers, mix the egg and flour together until totally combined. It will be course, kind of like wet sand. The mix will look something like this.

Add 1/4-1/2 cup of COLD water to the flour and egg mixture, 2 tablespoons at a time. You’re just using the water to bind the dough. It will be a bit stiff and rubbery when you have it right.

Once you have the dumpling dough together, grab your tools. You will need a rolling pin, flour (about 4 tablespoons for rolling), a cutter and a sharp edged spatula (just in case the noodles stick).

Put some flour on your rolling surface and turn the dough out. You’re going to knead the dough for 1 minute and let it stand for 2-5 minutes. This will give it a nice chew to the dumpling noodles when they are cooked. The chewier you want your noodles, the longer you will knead the dough. Lets get ready to roll.

Using your rolling pin, roll out your dumpling dough to the desired thickness. I rolled mine to about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch. I don’t think I would go thicker than 1/4 inch here.

Time to cut! I used an “herb” cutter my friend got me here, but you can use an actual noodle cutter or pizza cutter. Pretty much whatever you have on hand that will cut the dough. You can even use a sharp knife if that’s all you have; no worries. You can cut the dough into noodle shapes like I am here, or you can cut them into squares, either will work.

After you have cut the dumplings, you will put 1-2 tablespoons of flour on the dumplings and toss the noodles. This does 2 things; 1. helps keep the dumplings from sticking together while putting them into the pot…

2. the extra flour will help to thicken the soup slightly.

Once the dumplings are tossed with the flour, they are ready to go in the pot.

It is very important to have the liquid at a rolling boil before you add the dumplings to ensure they won’t stick together. I’ve made the mistake of not having the liquid rolling and ended up with a big clump of dough instead of the individual dumpling noodles.

Now drop the dumpling noodles into the boiling stock. Make sure to add them in a few batches, again to help prevent a clump of dough in the middle of your stock.

Stir in between adding dumplings. Once all the dumplings are in the stock with the chicken, check the seasonings to see if it needs salt and/or pepper. That’s it!