Chicken and DUMPLINGS!

Do you make them yourself? Do you have your own secret recipe? Is their status as a special occasion food the only thing that gets you through the anxious run up to holiday family gatherings?

I want to hear everything you have to say about chicken and DUMPLINGS!.

I am on a quest to create "my" chicken and DUMPLINGS!, basically a recipe/style that is delicious and I can replicate easily. I grew up on Sussex County, Delaware-style "slick" DUMPLINGS!, with my grandmother's being the thinnest and the slickest I've ever had. I've never successfully gotten her to tell or show me how she makes them (she's one of those "You get some flour..." "How much?" "About some" kind of cooks) and my attempts to replicate them have missed the mark. http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/side/other-side-dish/sussex-county-slick-DUMPLINGS!.html. And honestly, after years and years I finally convinced my poor aging, ailing grandmother to make me chicken and DUMPLINGS! when we went back to visit in September and while they were delicious and I was deeply appreciative, I think I'd like to take my chicken and DUMPLINGS! in a different direction.

Jeff grew up with chicken and pastry, which involves a chewier kind of dumpling. In the US south, you can get frozen pastry DUMPLINGS! in the supermarket, but not up here in the midwest.

Last night I made chicken and DUMPLINGS! in the style of this recipe - http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/12/chicken-and-DUMPLINGS!/, which was basically like chicken cobbler. It was good, but the chicken and DUMPLINGS! of my dearest heart is somewhere between slick and pastry.

I'm not entirely on board with this guy's technique, but between his accent and the tone of his voice and his laugh and the fact that he's talking about chicken and DUMPLINGS!, I could listen to this all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0G5Q7muWvM

I like 'em when they're good, but am sort of turned off of them because my wife's version is pretty bad. Unfortunately, she loves her recipe.

How does she make them?

She boils boneless skinless chicken breasts and chops them up, adds some of this stuff http://static.caloriecount.about.com/images/medium/tones-chicken-base-51722.jpg and some butter to make a broth, then makes a Bisquick biscuit dough, basically. Works the dough so it will be a little more chewy than a biscuit dough would normally be, rolls it out to about 1/4" thick, slices it up into DUMPLINGS! and drops them into the simmering broth. Plenty of black pepper over everything while it's cooking. Generally, the DUMPLINGS! come out gummy, the chicken is tough and flavorless, and the broth doesn't have much flavor profile beyond "salty." I sure hope she doesn't read this.

Shit, that art is big. I think ILX code resizes images by default?

I think it depends on the theme you have? It's definitely resided to something manageable for me.

No disrespect to your wife, but I agree that doesn't sound very appealing.