1001 Recipes to Create with a Rotisserie Chicken: Chicken & Dumplings Recipe

*** see the bottom for some tips I learned making this today

Twelve or thirteen years ago I went to Arkansas on vacation with a friend of mine to visit her family. While we were there we visited a sweet little old lady who taught me how to make chicken and dumplings. Now this is southern style dumplings. Not, my Mom's northern style dumplings. No offense to Mom or northern dumplings. Now if you don't know the difference, northern style dumplings are big biscuit style that are cooked on top of, in my Mom's case, a pot of stew. Southern style are made from the same dough, but are thinner, pasta like.
This recipe isn't for the faint of heart. Granted, it's not tough. There aren't a super amount of ingredients. But, it IS time consuming.Of course, I have made a few modifications. Being a true southern lady she properly pressure cooked her chicken, as usual, I cheat and use a rotisserie chicken. Now, today I ran out of chicken stock so I am going to take my own advice and make chicken stock. To do this, I will take the chicken bones, the unusable parts of my celery, and an onion. I will bring them to boil in a pot of water with a tsp of salt, and then let it simmer or boil gently until the liquid is reduced by half.

Ingredients:
1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed from bone
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
6 cups chicken broth

2 cups plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour (reserve the 2 tbsp for later)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/4 cup shortening

In a medium bowl mix 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. With a fork work the shortening into the flour. Put a well in the middle then pur in milk and mix well. Set aside.

In a large pot heat broth, add celery and onion. Bring to a boil then turn down to medium.
Now I've read recipes that say to roll the dough out to 1/4" thickness and cut into squares. I wasn't taught this way, and I've never done it.What I do is pinch of a piece of dough, flatten it as much as possible between my fingers and then plop it in the pot. When I have done this with all the dough add the chicken, and cook for 10 minutes. The flour from the dough is supposed to thicken the broth to a gravy texture. I haven't found this to be true. What I do is take those 2 reserved tablespoons of flour, mix them with about 1/4 cup of water, add a few tbsp. of the hot liquid, then stir the mixture into the pot.

********* Tonight I made this for dinner.I didn't have chicken stock so I made my own by boiling the bones, and chicken scraps with the end of the celery you cut off and don't use (rinse the dirt off), and a whole onion cut in half, plus about 2 tsp of salt, maybe a little more depending on your own taste. I happen to like a lot of salt.

I brought the mixture to a boil then reduced it to about medium. To be honest I fell asleep and it reduced down to about 1/3. I would have preferred it reduce down to about half. I have to admit it was the best chicken stock I've ever had. Soooo much better than store bought. I don't think I will ever buy store bought any time I have an option to make my own. In fact, I can even freeze the stock and use it anytime, save money too! Better flavor, and money saving to top it off, who could ask for more?
Next, I got out my handy dandy colander and poured the liquid through it into a bowl. Then, I discarded all the stuff in the colander.

******** I tried the method of rolling the dough out and it worked! Flour the surface really well, also sprinkle a little flour on the top of the dough so the rolling pin doesn't stick to the dough. Roll the dough as thin as it will go. Break off pieces and drop into the pot. Also, my liquid actually thickened nicely on it's own for the first time. That little bit of extra flour from rolling the dough really worked. AND, making the dumplings took a hell of a lot less time!