Ben's Chicken and Fluffy Dumplings

By RoketJSquerl

Ingredients

• Dumpling Dough:
• 4 whole chicken breasts, with the skin on ( you can use a whole chicken, but we only use the white meat in the dumplings)
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut in about 2 inch pieces
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped in big pieces
• 2 stalks of celery, cut in 2 inch pieces
• 3 whole bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbs. chicken bouillon granules or 3 chicken bullion cubes
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (or whole milk), well shaken

Details

Servings 8
Preparation time 30mins
Cooking time 120mins
Adapted from sweetteaandcornbread.blogspot.com

Preparation

Step 1

Place the chicken breasts, the carrots, onion, celery, bay leaves, chicken bouillon granules, and salt in a dutch oven or similar big pan or stock pot and just cover with water. Bring this to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook covered for about an hour and a half or two hours. The chicken should be so tender it is falling off of the bone. It's important to use the skin on chicken with the bones for this because this is what gives you the rich broth for your dumplings. Remove the chicken to cool. Once it has cooled, debone and either shred it or just sort of chop it in big pieces...not itty bitty pieces, they will get lost in the dumplings.

Place the strained, clear broth back in your pan. Discard the vegetables and bay leaves. This should be about 3 quarts of broth. Add in the chicken, and bring to a simmer.

Drop in tablespoon-sized dollops of your dumpling dough (recipe below), cover, and cook for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the lid, taste the broth, and add salt, pepper, or a touch of paprika to taste. Serve immediately.

For the Dumplings:
Whisk together your cake flour, baking powder, salt, paprika, and pepper in a large bowl. Gently mix in the melted butter and the buttermilk with a wooden spoon, then drop dollops of the batter into your simmering chicken broth. Follow the directions as stated above and serve.