Wednesday, May 11, 2011

100 year old Chicken & Dumplings Recipe

Its raining in Seattle......S'PRISE!  So, today 's recipe is perfect for a cold, squishy day. Pre WWII  Chicken and Dumplings (for two).  Total cooking time 2 hours ...... This is a pre instant gratification food, and well worth the wait! If you  have a  few extra  people  around the table and need a little more... just use a bigger chicken, a bigger pot and add more vegetables.

100 year Old Chicken & Dumplings Recipe

You will need for this:
1 small cornish hen
1 medium onion
4 medium carrots
1 cup diced celery (optional)
1/2 tsp sage
2 tbs parsley (4 tbs if using fresh parsley)
1 tsp rosemary
salt
pepper

Put the whole chicken in an 8 quart pot of water with the herbs and the onion (quartered). Add a little salt and pepper  (tasting throughout the cooking process is mandatory so only add a little salt at a time) Bring to a low boil for about 40 to 45 minutes. If chicken is frozen when you put it in.... boiling will take about an hour.  At  45-ish minutes, take chicken out of pot and put on plate to cool for about 5 minutes.  When cool enough to touch, pull all chicken meat  off bone and put chicken meat back into pot. Add carrots  and celery at this time  and bring back to a low boil  for about thirty minutes or until carrots are done.   Your liquid will probably boil down  a couple of times during this process so just add more water when needed. When the carrots and celery are done, drop the temperature from low boil to a simmer...  drop in your dumplings and put a lid on the pot..  Let them cook for 10 minutes covered and then uncover and cook for 10 more minutes.
How do you make dumplings?

From Great Grannys 100 year old biscuit recipe of course.

2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 tbs fat (yes!  grannys recipe says 'fat' because you can use shortening, vegetable oil , butter or in a pinch, bacon grease.... whatever you have handy)
3/4 cup milk

Put all dry ingredients in a bowl and  add 'fat'. Mix fat in with a fork until your ingredients are  sort of crumbly. Then add milk and  mix well.  Lay out dough on a piece of floured  wax paper. Pat down to about an inch thick. Cut into about 2 inch squares and add to pot.  Cook covered for 10 minutes and uncovered for another 10 minutes.

(If you want to make biscuits  instead of dumplings  just follow the recipe above , cut dough into biscuit rounds,  put in a greased, lightly  floured pan and cook in an oven preheated to 400 degrees  for about 15 minutes or so.)
  
Now I'll admit this all sounds labor intensive, but honestly I get in a  whole lot of conversing , net surfing, crocheting, telephoning and general puttering-around  activity while the cooking process is occurring. And if anyone wants me to do something I don't want to do... I just say  'cant...I'm cooking"

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