Chicken and Dumplings

I’m a bit confused. Do you throw away the onions, celery & carrots you’ve strained out of the broth in Step 2? I get that they might be there just to flavor the broth, but tossing them seems a bit of a waste.

They puff up quite a lot so if they start as quarter sized (Superball size in 3D) they’ll be almost twice that size when they are done. I always have to restrain myself from making them bigger to start with. Trust me, smaller is better. They cook more evenly and have more sauce seasoning around them.

Chicken n' dumplings was a much loved dish made by my much loved - great cook grandfather in the day of my childhood in my family's Anglo household. My Sicilian husband who grew up with his Italian speaking grandmother heading the kitchen has never appreciated dumplings. Until now. These dumplings are so good even he likes them. And for those who may be dumpling virgins, you need to have and keep the broth at simmer when adding and cooking the dumpling dough.

Grace,
For those who aren't used to it, dumpling dough tends to expand at an incredible rate. Those dumplings in the photo may have started life as more than the size of a quarter, but not by much.
I'd take a soup spoon and uses that as my measure, but don't try to fill it like an icecream scoop. The dumpling should start out as big as the bowl of the spoon, not as big as the sphere the spoon would be part of if it kept going.
I hope that helps.
J

This was not my mother’s dumplings! Rather than water I did use boxed chicken broth. Having made my own broths for years, even with the comments from others, 40 minutes of cooking the chicken did not seem enough time to get a rich broth. Beginning with the boxed broth the flavor was sublime. The other thing I did was rather than sprinkle the parsley at the end I added it to the dumpling dough. Loved the look and flavor of the dumplings!

Great recipe but what really takes it to a higher lever is adding a few sprigs of fresh sage along with the thyme. Unbelievably sublime.

I'm thrilled because this recipe was a huge hit with the most persnickety members of my household. Here are my mini-modifications: 1. I used a large sauté pan instead of a Dutch oven because I don't own a Dutch oven 2. For step 2, I used 4c water & 4c chicken stock 3. For added flavor, I added a heaping tsp of chicken base between steps 4 & 5 4. In step 6, I added some of the carrots from the strained stock back into the dish because I like carrot heavy soups and stews

This is a sensation! We replaced all the liquid in the recipe with chicken broth, in essence making a doubly-enriched home for the dumplings. Other than that, we made the recipe as is. If you take your time with the roux, the resulting broth will be thick, luxurious and creamy. It's worth the cook time. Just to be sure this time-intensive version of the recipe was worth it, we tried the Pioneer Woman's recipe yesterday. Bland, bland, bland.

We made this yesterday almost completely to the recipe, came out fantastic. The only change I made is that I added a bay leaf with the thyme because I always put bay leaves into my soups. We'll definitely make again, next time I think we'll add some garlic to the stock and garlic powder to the dumplings. I may also mix the chives into the dumplings.

Just made this today. It's a lot of work but totally worth it - delicious and soulful! I made a mistake of adding parsley and chives to the dumplings - what a fabulous mistake!

This was a fantastic dinner for my under-the-weather husband and myself. It took closer to 3 hours than 2 to prepare, but the result was a thick, full flavored soup and pillowy soft dumplings. A winner! I used a whole cut up chicken instead of just thighs, and substituted sour cream thinned with a little water for the buttermilk. Leftovers the second night were just as good.

Delicious. Worth the effort. My first time making dumplings and hubby and I both thought the entire dish was delicious. I followed the recipe pretty closely so my dumplings came out light and springy. I did brown mushrooms in butter and white wine and added them to the stew during the final 18 minutes prior to adding the dumpling dough. Rich, delicious comfort food.

Your “true” dumplings are regional - maybe a Pennsylvania Dutch. I grew up with these fluffy dumplings, so they are “true” dumplings to me.

After years of ending up with thin gravy, and disintegrating dumplings, I tried Alison Roman's recipe which made an absolutely delicious dish.
The roux improves the gravy, cutting the meat off the bone ( in fairly large chunks) makes for easier eating, and the dumplings , were light and tender, instead of crumbling into the liquid.
Smaller dumplings are less dry. though the size of a quarter were a little too small for me. About apricot-size works well.

Thank you Alison Roman

I am 70 years old and my mother’s chicken and dumplings were almost identical to this recipe except she used a pressure cooker. I have always been confused by flat things I think of as noodles being called dumplings. Maybe the difference is regional. I grew up near Buffalo and our dumplings were puffy, in our Scottish family.