Chicken and Dumplings
A farm chicken gently simmered in its broth, topped with wide, tender strips of dough like thick noodles. Hearty, simple, unpretentious: the everyday table.
A farm chicken gently simmered in its broth, topped with wide, tender strips of dough like thick noodles. Hearty, simple, unpretentious: the everyday table.
You see, in the Raleigh house, this dish simmered while I filled my notebooks with sketches. My mother would skim a spoonful of chicken fat to bind the gravy, and roll the dough so thin she cut it with a knife into wide ribbons. They were slipped one by one into the simmering broth, never boiling — otherwise, she taught me, they would fall apart. I assure you, a mind that seeks to perfect machines first learns patience at the stove.
- •Whole farm chicken — 1 fine bird (base of broth and meat)
- •Wheat flour — as needed (dough for dumplings)
- •Chicken fat or lard — a good spoonful (binding and tenderness)
- •Onion, celery stalk, bay leaf — a little of each (broth aromatics)
- •Milk — a splash (tenderness of dough)
- •Salt and pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Chicken and Dumplings
A farm chicken gently simmered in its broth, topped with wide, tender strips of dough like thick noodles. Hearty, simple, unpretentious: the everyday table.
Why this dish? The quintessential comfort food of middle-class families in North Carolina, where Beulah grew up in Raleigh. Slow-simmered on the stove, it was the everyday meal of a busy household — exactly the kind of domestic chore the young inventor would later seek to simplify with her household appliances.
You see, in the Raleigh house, this dish simmered while I filled my notebooks with sketches. My mother would skim a spoonful of chicken fat to bind the gravy, and roll the dough so thin she cut it with a knife into wide ribbons. They were slipped one by one into the simmering broth, never boiling — otherwise, she taught me, they would fall apart. I assure you, a mind that seeks to perfect machines first learns patience at the stove.
Ingredients (period version)
- Whole farm chicken — 1 fine bird (base of broth and meat)
- Wheat flour — as needed (dough for dumplings)
- Chicken fat or lard — a good spoonful (binding and tenderness)
- Onion, celery stalk, bay leaf — a little of each (broth aromatics)
- Milk — a splash (tenderness of dough)
- Salt and pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Chicken thighs and drumsticks — 1 kg (meat and broth)
- All-purpose flour — 250 g (dumplings)
- Cold butter — 60 g (replaces lard)
- Milk — 120 ml (dough)
- Baking powder — 1 tsp (lightly puffed dumplings)
- Onion, 2 carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1 bay leaf — 1 lot (aromatics)
- Salt, pepper, parsley sprigs — to taste (finish)
Method
- Cover the chicken with cold water along with onion, carrots, celery, and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, skimming.
- Remove the chicken, debone into large pieces, strain the broth and return to a simmer.
- For the dough: rub the flour with cold butter and baking powder, add milk to form a soft dough. Roll out to 3 mm and cut into 3 cm strips.
- Drop the strips one by one into the simmering broth (never boiling), cover and cook 15 minutes.
- Return the meat, season, sprinkle with parsley. Serve hot in deep bowls.
How it was made : Before commercial chicken, one would slaughter a hen from the yard, older and tougher, hence the long cooking that tenderized the flesh and yielded a gelatin-rich broth. The unleavened dough (“slick dumplings”) was most common in the Carolinas, cut with a knife on a floured board.
The contemporary twist : Serve in a blue enamelware bowl in refectory style and top with a few snipped celery shoots: a deliberate “vintage American cuisine” wink.
Sources : Bill Neal, Bill Neal's Southern Cooking, University of North Carolina Press, 1985 · John Egerton, Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History, Knopf, 1987
Beulah Henry · Charactorium