When I was a kid 70+ years ago, my parents used to make Chicken and Dumplings which required 6-10 hours of simmering, and ended up with the meat falling off the bones and a thick, rich sauce. The result after the bones were removed from the pot was a boneless chicken in a "white sauce", to which the dumplings were added maybe as much as an hour before serving.

For veggies, we often ate Collard Greens with the C&D, and for dessert had either a home-made pie or pineapple-upside down cake. All was accompanied by a VERY strong Coffee/Chicory/hot milk brew to drink, as was ALL of our meals..

(My parents were raised in the Deep South.)

I have checked every cook book and on-line source I can find, and have come up with absolutely zero recipes which yield chicken stewed in a white sauce.

Does anyone here know how to make what I am after? I have such a craving for it, you'd think I was pregnant.

We're all waiting after that post!

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
We're all waiting after that post!

I've been searching the 'net all day still looking. Found several interesting recipes, but none anything like the original I'm after.

So I'm going to start experimenting. Think what I'll try first is this...

1. I'll bring to a boil then simmer for 4-8 hours an unskinned hen of about 3 pounds weight with gizzard & liver removed, well covered in water.

2. While the chicken is cooking, I'll make a quart or so of medium thickness creamy white sauce and store it in the fridge.

3. Then, a bit before the chicken is ready to fall off the bones of its own accord, I'll add ALL the white sauce, stir well, and let the whole schmear simmer another two hours or so until the meat falls off the bones, then remove the bones.

At that point, with the chicken and sauce still simmering, I'll add dollops of home-made dumpling mix ( a biscuit mix works well for dumplings) and cook until a straw or ice pick inserted in the dumplings comes out clean.

For added flavor I'll use about 1/2-3/4 teaspoon of Lawry's seasoned salt, 1/2 teaspoon o\f coarse cut black pepper and maybe a whole, small, uncut Vidalia or Walla Walla onion when I first start simmering the chicken. If so, I'll remove and discard the onion before adding the white sauce to the stew pot.

Depending on how it all comes out, I'll modify future attempts as seems appropriate.

BTT

Is the white sauce made like gravy?

quote:

Originally posted by J_Zola:
Is the white sauce made like gravy?

No, but if you type in "white sauce recipe" on your search engine and then do a search, you'll find a LOT of free white sauce recipes. Just pick the one which looks best & easiest to you. If I get a few minutes I'll try to find where I got the one I printed out for myself...

I think it was at the Betty Crocker website, but it might have been somewhere else. I know wherever it was had recipes for thin, medium, and thick versions. I will use medium because I like a fairly hearty white sauce, but don't want it so thick it might scorch during all that simmering.

And like all simmering, if it starts to get too thick, just add some water and stir 'til it is at the consistency you want.

My late grandmother used to make the best chicken and dumplings I ever had. Hadn't thought about it in years, but now you have my mouth watering.

I'll check with my mother and see if she remembers what went into it. But I warn you, if she does, it won't be a "recipe" in any sense that you are looking for. The women in my family didn't measure or time anything. It was a handful of this and a pinch of that; cook until it's done.

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
My late grandmother used to make the best chicken and dumplings I ever had. Hadn't thought about it in years, but now you have my mouth watering.

I'll check with my mother and see if she remembers what went into it. But I warn you, if she does, it won't be a "recipe" in any sense that you are looking for. The women in my family didn't measure or time anything. It was a handful of this and a pinch of that; cook until it's done.

Thanks, if you ask her and she answers with something, please post it here. The kind of recipe you describe is EXACTLY what I am looking for.

You may note from my post about the experiment I am about to try, that a pinch of this, a dab of that, a dollop of something else, season to taste, is exactly how I cook.

I see precise recipes from cook books as an interesting starting point, but I never blindly follow them. Home cooking where and when I was raised was always people making delicious meals with what they had at hand. Cooking is at least 30% inspiration and intuition....ask any Cordon Bleu Chef.

I'm not doubting what you're saying and remembering but every C&D dish I run into is in what some would call a "white sauce". I think it is basically the flour used as a thickener. And, the dumplings just add a bit more to it.

Obviously your mother may have her own procedure, just as you've described, but I'd kind of tend to bet on flour and, of course, various seasonings.

Great dish BTW, the hard part is getting the right texture to the dumplings.

That sort of works, Gato, but in my experience it produces a darker sauce than I am after.

Thanks,

AC

I made some from leftover chicken, just used half and half mixed with cornstarch to thicken the gravy. Simmered leftover cutup roast chicken with onion, celery, carrot chopped up, with broth from the carcass. Used those packaged triangle biscuits, rolled them thinner, cut up into 1" by 1/2" pieces, added after the gravy thickened, simmer for 15 min. Seemed fine to me, but I'm from NY. Added some Bell's poultry seasoning, and thyme and bayleaf in the broth.

AC:

Sorry to be so long getting back to you; I've been traveling. I did check with my mother about whether she knew my grandmother's recipe. Unfortunately, her response was that she never liked chicken and dumplings. Guess that explains why I never remember her making them. Sorry, struck out.

Thanks for the attempt. I appreciate your effort.

Isn't her failure to ever make you C&D as a kid a continued instance of severe child abuse?

AC

AC,

I agree completely! But, we did have biscuits and gravy for breakfast, BBQ brisket, venison sausage, chili, venison backstraps and steaks, rice and gravy, and tacos, chalupas, and enchiladas on a regular basis.

Good morning, Mr. Canuck;

I put a whole chicken in the crockpot overnight with celery, onion and carrots. Put whatever else you want. You're building flavor into the broth. In the morning, I pour off the broth and bone the chicken into a separate bowl. Put both bowls into the refrigerator. Remove most of the fat (leave what you want) when it comes to the surface of the broth and gets solid. Do away with the spent veggies.

When you're ready, reheat the broth and put enough broth into self rising flour or biscuit mix or flavored flour if you're bent that way to make a biscuit-like dough. Don't overwork! I say again ... don't overwork. Work as little as possible to get flour and broth mixed all the way through. Adjust the amount of broth as necessary.

To make the dumplings, I just pick up a small spoonful of dough and drop it in the hot broth. If you want, you can flatten the dough a little so it cooks through better. You can also pat or roll out the dough and cut into noodles or little squares. Now ... very important part ... don't smooth out the surface of the dumpling. It's best to leave the surface as rough as you can. As it cooks, the dumpling will smooth up by having the "sticky out parts" of the dumpling dissolve into the broth and make the thickening.

If you like the broth thicker, add a little more flour as you would thicken a gravy.

Cook until the dumplings are done, add the chicken back and that's it. It's very simple. Just build the flavor into the broth and then put the broth into the dumpling.

Y'all be good.

horsefly

And now we know how. Thanks, horsefly.