Lately I’ve been thinking, rather than trying to cook things off the top of my head, throwing this and that together, I should pick a few recipes to try cooking each week from magazines, blogs, and cookbooks. I’m hoping it not only gets me cooking with different ingredients, but just gets me cooking more in general! I have been eating too many sandwiches for supper lately…
To start it off, gracing the cover of the February issue of Bon Appetit is a delicious looking meal of Chicken & Dumplings, something I have never cooked before. Since I had all the ingredients on hand, I thought it would be the perfect start! As I opened up the recipe at 5 O’clock, I quickly realized the last step calls for 2.5 hours of simmering… Sadly, this isn’t the first time I have done this…recalling another Bon Appetit recipe (Rigatoni with Spicy Ground Turkey Ragu), where I didn’t realize it was supposed to simmer for four hours until after I started cooking… Seeing as I’m cooking for myself, there is no way I’m going to dedicate that much time to my supper. So naturally, I made a few modifications and put the whole process on fast forward. Of course, it was still delicious, but if you really want to develop those flavours, follow the full Bon Appetit recipe, simmering and all!
Chicken & Dumplings
Ingredients
- 3 slices of bacon
- 1/4 cup flour
- 4 small chicken thighs
- salt & pepper
- 2 handfuls mushroom
- 1/2 a medium yellow onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 cups chicken broth
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- Dumplings
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- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- pinch of ground pepper
- 1 large egg
- 1/8 cup whole milk
Instructions
- In a deep pan on medium heat, cook bacon until crisped. Remove to paper towel lined plate.
- Season chicken thighs with salt & pepper, toss in a bowl with flour, dredging the chicken. On medium heat, cook the chicken skin side down until golden brown, about 10-15 minutes. Flip and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Remove chicken from pan.
- Add chopped mushrooms to pan, cooking until beginning to soften, about 5-7 minutes. Add chopped onion, cooking until onion is soft and translucent.
- Add crushed garlic to pan with mushrooms and onions, cooking for about 2-3 minutes until beginning to brown, but not burning.
- Add wine, broth, thyme, bay leaf, and place chicken thighs, skin up, back in the pan.
- Simmer on just above medium heat.
- While liquid is working towards a simmer, prepare dumplings.
- In a bowl, combine dumpling ingredients, mixing together to form a slightly lumpy batter.
- Once broth is simmering, add in teaspoon sized bits of dumpling batter, cooking until they have doubled in size, about five minutes. If you don't have enough room for all the dumplings, remove the cooked ones with a slotted spoon, and prepare the rest.
- Once your dumplings have been made, and the liquid is thickening up, place the whole pan in the oven and broil for about 5-7 minutes, until the chicken skin gets crispy again.
- Remove from oven and serve!
I had to restrain myself from eating all of this! Although it has been very nice the past couple days, this is definitely a dish I will be whipping up again on a extra cold evening! Maybe I will even plan ahead to give the recipes its full cooking time.
Enjoy!
Bob
