When my Grandma King was teaching me to make chicken and dumplings, I tried to write down the recipe. — rolls eyes–. She never measured anything, I was trying to guestimate how much she was using, until we came to the eggs……. She says to use 3, 6, 9, or 12 eggs. I shook my head, and asked her “well which is it?”, she says in her southern voice, “well it depends”. pause.. “Well granny, how do you DECIDE how many eggs to use?” She looks at me and grinned, and says in a sweet southern voice, “Well, it depends on how many eggs I have”… So there you go.
Ingredients: [‘whole chicken’, ‘water’, ‘salt’, ‘pepper’, ‘flour’, ‘hot water’, ‘flour’, ‘salt’, ‘evaporated milk’, ‘eggs’]
Quantity of Ingredients: [“1 whole chicken, cut into serving pieces “,”8 -10 cups water, as needed “,”1 teaspoon salt”,”2 teaspoons pepper (to taste)”,”3 tablespoons flour”,”1/4 cup hot water”,”2 1/2 cups flour”,”1 teaspoon salt”,”1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk, divided “,”3 large eggs (3, 6,9 or 12 eggs)”]
Number of Servings: 6
Steps: [‘Add chicken, water, and salt to a 6 quart Dutch oven or stock pot , bring to a boil, then lower heat to medium-high and cook until chicken is well done. (about 40 minutes).’, ‘Remove chicken from pot, and let cool a few minutes. Remove skin and any excess fat and discard. Remove bones from breasts and chop meat into bite size pieces. Return chicken back to pot. Add pepper and more water if needed. Return to a boil.’, ‘While chicken is cooking, make dumplings.’, ‘Mix flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs and 1/4 cup evaporated milk and mix dumpling ingredients just enough to form a stiff dough. Add more flour if necessary.’, ‘If using more than 3 eggs you will need to increase the flour and salt accordingly. Otherwise dough will be too wet to work with.’, ‘Pour out onto a floured surface. Knead dough 1 or 2 times, being careful not to overwork the dough. The dough becomes tough very quickly, so handle as little as possible. Dust dough and rolling pin with flour. Roll dough to about 1/8 inch thickness.’, “Cut into strips about 3/4 inch by 3 inches with a floured knife. Let rest until ready to add to boiling chicken. Add dumplings to boiling broth a few pieces at a time, so that dumplings don’t stick to each other. Add remaining evaporated milk to pot.”, ‘Cook 15 minutes. If broth is too runny, dissolve 3 Tbsp flour into 1/4 cup hot water until there are no lumps. Add to dumplings and cook another 5 minutes. Serve.’]