Chicken & dumplings

At my friend Marion's request, here's my absolutely bitchin' recipe for chicken and dumplings. Well, not so much my recipe as Southern Living's, published in their 1981 Annual Recipes (yeah, I'm old). I could have taken a picture of this last night, since that's what we had for dinner, but I didn't. Next time. (Rich will be so disappointed to hear I need to make this again to take a picture. It might be his very favorite thing I cook. Honestly, it may be mine, too.)

Old Fashioned Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients:

     3 cups all purpose flour
     1 tablespoon baking powder
     1 teaspoon salt
     1 cup chicken broth
     1/4 cup vegetable oil

     3–4 quarts chicken broth

     Cooked chicken, shredded

To cook:

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the chicken broth and vegetable oil; stir until the dry ingredients are moistened. Turn out onto a large, generously floured surface. Roll the dough to 1/16" thickness. Using a pizza cutter if you have one, or a knife if you don't, cut the dough into 5- x 1-inch strips.

Bring the broth to a full boil. Drop in the dumplings, one at a time. Cover, lower the heat so it won't boil over, and cook for 15 minutes. Stir in the chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking, uncovered, until desired thickness is reached.

A few notes:

You really ought to use some of the broth to cook the chicken. Just add that broth to the pot with the rest of it after the chicken is done. I normally use a pressure cooker, but you can also stew or simmer it—your choice. I use 5 or 6 boneless, skinless thighs, but you can use whatever pieces you have handy and thawed. You just want to end up with a few cups (or whatever amount you like) of cooked chicken. I'd advise against adding vegetables when you cook the chicken, because it muddies up the flavors pretty quickly, but that's just my personal preference. And using the b/s thighs, I scrape off the visible fat first. After it's done, tear or shred into bite-size pieces (it's not as good if it's cubed).

I use a pastry cloth, i.e., a piece of canvas from my local fabric shop, to roll out the dough. You can also use a plastic or silicon sheet, or just a clean countertop, generously floured. Wherever you do it, make sure you've got a large area. Seriously, it takes a good-sized piece of counter real estate, maybe 2-1/2 feet square. And, yes, really, 1/16". The dumplings swell up as they cook, so if you start with them any thicker than that, you're going to end up with slabs. I like to take the dumplings off the pastry cloth after they're cut and layer them on a plate, sprinkling them frequently with flour so they won't stick together too much. That speeds up the process of dropping them in the boiling broth quite a bit.

If your schedule calls for it, or if you just prefer, after you mix the chicken in you can transfer the whole shebang to a slow cooker. Cook it on 'Low' until you're ready to eat. And, slow cooker or not, if it looks like it's not going to thicken up enough, mix a tablespoon or so of flour with cool broth or water, stir it in, and cook for a few more minutes.

This recipe is not only great comfort food, it's also perfectly suitable for delicate stomachs. No spices, nothing hard to digest…I used it to get over a case of Delhi Belly after returning from India, and fed it to Rich as he recovered from a terrible case of food poisoning a few years ago. An all-around good recipe to keep handy.

I think I'll go have some leftovers for lunch. Bon appetit, Marion!

Espresso, or why my kitchen looks that way

This is like mine. You can buy this one for $17 on eBay

About a hundred years ago, I was given an espresso machine. It was a little Krups home espresso maker. Back in those days, it was considered a nice enough home machine. I had just discovered cappuccino—in Milan, thank you very much—and was thrilled at being able to have it whenever I wanted (this was before Starbucks). But as so often happens with specialized kitchen equipment, it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, and the machine was hard to clean, to boot. So I stuck it up in a cabinet and forgot about it.

Fast forward twenty years or so. I've recently discovered that the only thing better than coffee made with Starbucks coffee beans, freshly ground right beforehand, and brewed in a best-in-the-world Technivorm coffee maker is a cup of coffee from Starbucks with a shot or two of espresso in it.* The espresso turns the coffee into a whole new experience—bolder but smoother than coffee alone. I know! You'd think very concentrated coffee added to strong coffee would equal something like battery acid, but it's just the opposite.

So for some months now, far too often, I've been going to Starbucks for coffee with espresso in it instead of just making coffee at home**.

Then I finally remembered that little Krups machine. Without fussing with the steamed milk (which was what made cleanup so hard), it might be worth hauling it out and using it. After some effort and a few delays (which is a whole 'nother long story), I now have a little Krups espresso machine on the kitchen counter beside the Technivorm, fully equipped and ready to work.

I've used it four days now. And I'm learning:

• If you use the same beans for espresso that you use for coffee (and grind them the same) espresso can be bland. (Day 1)
• It's impossible to get coffee from the grinder to the Krups machine's filter basket without spilling it all over the counter. (Day 1)
• If you leave the grounds in the filter holder to cool off and forget about them 'til late in the day they solidify into concrete and become a more-or-less permanent part of the filter basket. (Day 1)
• Just using more of those same beans you use for coffee doesn't help with the blandness. (Day 2)
• If you try to empty the filter holder as soon as you make the espresso, before the grounds harden, the filter holder is going to be hot. All parts of it. Very hot. (Day 2)
• If you buy Espresso Roast at Starbucks and get them to grind it, you can fix both the blandness and spilled ground problems. (Day 3)
• If you flip that little plastic piece on the filter holder closed, it keeps the filter basket in place, so you can empty it while the grounds are hot. (Day 3)
• Still, you'd better be careful to not touch the metal parts. (Day 3)
• Unscrewing the lid of the water reservoir doesn't relieve all the pressure in the machine, even if it's completely finished brewing and you think it does. (Day 4)
• Releasing the filter holder while there's still pressure behind it causes a coffee ground explosion. Literally. It blows coffee grounds everywhere—all over the carafe, the drip tray, the surrounding counter in all directions, the top of the machine and, most significantly, back up into the machine where only a toothpick and bitter, bitter tears will even begin to budge them. (Day 4)

Yeah. At this point, 75¢ a shot is looking like a pretty smart investment.

*For my taste, a short (8 oz) cup needs one shot, i.e., a "Red Eye." A tall (12 oz) cup needs two shots (a "Black Eye"). I don't know what they call three or more shots. I'm guessing "Never close your Eyes again."

**I do have to point out that I just get brewed coffee which, at this writing, is $1.65 for a tall when you bring your own cup. I don't actually spend $5 on coffee, though adding shots does start pushing it in that direction.