Coastal Viewpoint Recipes Page 4

The best Chicken and Dumplings you will ever eat:

10 chicken thighs or 14 legs
4 chicken breasts
3-4 tablespoons of salt

Place in big pot and add cold water until all chicken is fairly well covered up by water, then boil until just done, probably 15-20 minutes. Be careful chicken does not stick to bottom.

Take out chicken and let cool before taking it off the bone.

2 14-oz cans chicken broth
2 10-3/4 oz cans of cream of chicken
1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
up to 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
Add two cans of chicken broth to the pot of broth just cooked. Add another two or three cans of cream of chicken soup, low fat will work fine. Add spices and boil together. Taste test the broth and adjust seasoning or salt to find the right balance for your personal taste.

While this has been cooking, the mixing of the batter should be taking place.

3 1/2 cups self-rising flour
2 cups buttermilk (whole, low fat, or nonfat is OK)
1 cup Wesson corn oil

Mix well together. Once ready, test a couple of dumplings in the softly boiling (medium heat) broth pot. Use a teaspoon to spoon a couple of dumpling balls into the broth. Cover, but do not walk away from the stove. The pot cannot boil over. If it starts to boil over, quickly take off the top.

Taste test dumplings after 3-4 minutes. You have the right dough mix if the dumpling has not fallen apart and if the inside of the dumpling has a soft, biscuit-like consistency. If the dumpling is falling apart, you need to add a small amount of flour to your mix. If it is getting too solid in the middle, first try a touch more oil. If that is not doing it, add a touch more buttermilk. Sometimes it takes a few experimental tries to get the dumplings just right.

It will probably take four to five separate cookings of dumplings to get the whole batch of dough finished. After each batch, gently take up the dumplings and some of the broth and put into a bowl. Expect the process to take an hour for such a large pot. Make less and it will take less time. Just half the recipe. While dumplings are cooking, use that time to chop up the chicken. After everything is done, put it all back together in the pot to be sure it is hot before serving.