Chicken and Dumplings

But in the meantime, we're going to start on my chicken and dumplings

So I've got our pot getting hot here, and we're going to add our water. And we want to add enough to more than adequately cover our chicken

So we're just going to put our chicken into our water. All right, now we're going to add onion to our pot and celery

and a couple chicken bouillon cubes. and I'm going to put in maybe a teaspoon or so of house seasoning

Now, my favorite part to the celery are the leaves on it

So I'm just going to snap that off, stick those down in there. And the last thing that's going in our pot is bay leaves

So I'm going to put our lid on there and I'm going to leave the lid cracked

Now, I've already got a pot of chicken ready right here. Now, I'm going to go ahead and pull our chicken out of here

My mother and grandmother made their chicken and dumplings with whole pieces of chicken

Now, some people don't want any part of the bone, but like I said, I love it just like this

Now, we're gonna move on over here and make our dumplings. Now I got a bowl of just plain flour here and I gonna use about a teaspoon of salt I lost my beautiful daddy when I was 19 and he was only 40 but his favorite food was chicken and dumplings

and it meant so much to me to be able to make his favorite dish

even though he wasn't around to eat them, but it was just real important in case he came back

I could make him chicken and dumplings. So I'm going to start by using my hand

and I can already feel that dough getting real, real hard. Now I'm going to add my ice water

just a couple of tablespoons at a time, and then I'm going to come around

and I'm going to keep building my ball of flour. Okay, so I'm going to come back

and get me a couple of more tablespoons of water and just keep working that dough

until all that flour is in there. All right, we've worked up almost every bit of that flour

I'm going to pick it up, kind of work it like that, and now I'm going to bring it over here

and I'm going to put down plenty of flour. So here we go

If this dough is like it should be, this should be a fairly hard job

So this process does take a few minutes, but have patience or call in your man and just

keep working it and working it and working it All right All right now I just gonna dust that with a little more flour I going to let that sit and dry for a few minutes and while I waiting on that to dry

I'm going to put in a can of cream of celery soup, and it's just amazing the kick that that can of soup

is going to give our broth. All right, I'm just going to stir those up

I like my dumplings seasoned up with a black pepper, so we're going to add some of that

Can you know what I'm gonna do? I think just to make sure those bad boys are peppered enough, I'm gonna come over here

and do this. Cause I really do like those flavored with the pepper

Now we're gonna take just a butter knife, and then we're gonna start strippin' our dough

Isn't that pretty, beautiful is that dough. Can't think of one other dough that's prettier than that kind

All right. Look at that. Beautiful, thin. So we're just gonna break it in two

and drop it into our pot. And the most important thing, y'all

about making your dumplings is you don't want to stir your pot

because if you do, there's a great chance you could tear up your dumplings

and you don want to do that So this will take just about 10 minutes And when they done we just gonna lay our chicken back on top of our dumplings

I'm ready to finish up our pot, and all I'm gonna do is take a little fresh parsley

and give them a few whacks, because I do love what the green does to it

And now I think it's safe for me to put my spoon in the pot

These dumplings look just wonderful. All right, now this is ready for our chicken to go back in

And we're just gonna lay it on top of our dumplings. So I think they're ready for me to sample

Look how good that does look. Look at that nice fat dumpling

And there is, there's been a bird out here raising cane. I think I'm gonna go out there and see

He may be after my cat. What a perfect day for chicken and dumplings. Mmm

They bring back so many wonderful memories. Thank you