One of my favorite meals from my childhood growing up in East Texas was the chicken and dumplings my Mom would fix. Now they are also my grandson Gryphon’s favorite as well. Here is Gryphon posing by our log cabin on our adventure farm, Albergue Garcia.
Isn’t he the greatest with his Red Rider Bee Bee gun and muck boots? Well, back to making chicken and dumplings.
- 1 nice plump whole chicken
- 5 cups flour
- ice water
- 5 tablespoons Crisco shortening
Boil the chicken until tender in a large pot. Remove the chicken and debone it. Save the chicken stock on the stove to cook your dumplings. I then use my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer, to mix the Crisco shortening and salt. Add the flour 1 cup at a time to the shortening mixing well. Next add ice water slowly to the mixture mixing well until you have a stiff dough consistency. Divide the dough into 4 big balls and roll out each ball of the dough on a well floured workspace to about an 1/8th inch thickness. Cut the rolled out dough into 1 inch long strips of dough and drop these strips of dough one by one into the boiling chicken stock. Next add the deboned chicken to the pot and cover and cook slowly on low heat for about 30 minutes or until the dumplings are cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve! Be ready to serve second helpings. My grandson Gryphon likes to eat his dumplings with saltine crackers with fresh butter.
Albergue Garcia 