My Mama's Chicken And Dumplings

(click on the photo to enlarge. Photos above taken last year when mama was making her famous chicken and dumpling recipe for Stephen and my brother, Randy - their favorite dish!)

Homemade Chicken Broth
* A large stockpot
* Bone-in chicken (this is healthier because of the bone marrow, and I'm sorry if that statement grosses you out.)
* Two or three stalks of celery (With the leaves; they're full of flavor)
* A whole onion, quartered
* Sometimes I add some carrots
* Add enough water to the stockpot to cover everything.

Cook the chicken and vegetables for a couple of hours or so (if you're adding carrots, wait until the last 30 minutes to add them) and let the broth cool enough for you to touch the chicken without burning yourself. Remove the chicken from the broth and set aside.
While the Chicken is cooling, make your dough. You can either roll it out on a floured surface and cut into strips or you can make drop biscuits. Depends on your preference. For me, it depends on how much time I have.

The Dumpling Dough
This is the really hard part for me. My mama always added egg to her dough, and I just had to omit that because the fact that mine was always too chewy was driving me insane. If anyone knows how to add the egg and allow the dough to be tender at the same time, please let me know! So here goes:
* 2 cups of flour (Mama always used White Lily self rising)
* 1/4 stick of Crisco Shortening (I use butter)
* 1/2 cup of milk, buttermilk, chicken broth, or even water

Put the flour in a large bowl, make a well in the center and cut in the shortening or butter until the mixture is blended into the size of little peas (sort of like when you're making homemade biscuits) you can do this with a pastry blender, a fork or do like I do; roll up your sleeves and do it with your *clean* hands. Make a well in the center of this again and slowly add your 1/2 cup of liquid, pulling the flour down from the sides of the bowl a little at a time. Knead a few times times, making sure you do not over-knead it! Form a dough ball and toss it onto a floured surface to roll out like my mama did in the photo up there, using her "Pampered Chef" dough roller. If you like biscuit-like dumplings, just spoon them into the broth. I prefer my mama's technique of rolling them out about 1/8 inch thick.

At this point, return the broth to a slow boil, slice the dough into strips and pinch a little at a time off of the strips into the broth (work kind of fast). Reduce heat to low. ALL recipes tell you to cover for 15 minutes. Usually when I do this the dumplings cook away, so I like to keep the lid off and guard them! Do not stir, you'll end up with a thick soup. In stead of stirring, shake the stock pot a little to move them around. Don't forget to add the chicken meat before you serve it! ;)

The End!

I really wish I could have figured out a simpler way of writing this recipe, but that's just not possible for me. I don't know about the rest of you, but making dumplings is not easy for me, my mama always told me I just needed more practice. I hope she was right. To this day I haven't succeeded with adding an egg to the dough. I can't help but wonder if just for giggles, my mama took her dumpling secret to Heaven with her?