Chicken and Dumplings

The February thaw arrived mid-week — forty degrees on Wednesday, which felt tropical after weeks of single digits. The snow shrank. The road turned to mud. The eaves dripped all day with a sound like rain but more hopeful, because rain is weather and dripping eaves are the house exhaling after holding its breath since December. Frost went outside and stood in the yard and turned his face to the sun with the expression of a dog who'd forgotten what warm felt like and was remembering, all at once, with his whole body.

I walked the property. The sugarhouse, the barn, the garden fence, the stone wall along the road. Everything survived the winter, which is not guaranteed — I've lost fence posts to ice and barn boards to wind and one memorable year a sugar maple to a lightning strike that split it down the middle like a pencil. But this year, everything held. The sugarhouse is intact. The equipment is clean. The evaporator is waiting. March is two weeks away and the maples are getting ready, deep inside where you can't see, preparing to wake up and send the sap running and begin the whole beautiful cycle again.

I made chicken and dumplings. The comfort food, the "we survived February" food, the dish that says: the worst is over, the cold is breaking, and the kitchen is warm and the dumplings are fluffy and everything is going to be fine. The chicken simmers in broth until it falls off the bone. The dumplings are dropped in — flour, baking powder, milk, butter — and they steam for fifteen minutes, covered, don't peek. The dumplings puff up light and tender and the chicken is soft and the broth is rich and the whole thing is a celebration of patience and timing, which is what cooking is, and living is, and marriage is, and Vermont is.

Week one hundred of the blog. Helen counted. I didn't — I stopped counting at some point, because counting implies that you're keeping score, and the blog isn't a score, it's a practice. Like teaching was a practice. Like tapping maples is a practice. You show up. You do the work. You don't count the weeks. You count the people who show up with you. A hundred and seventy of them, by Helen's numbers. Every one of them worth the hundred weeks it took to find them.

The thaw will end. The cold will come back. Then March. Then sap. Then spring. The cycle turns. Week one hundred. Week one hundred and one. The pot is on the stove. The fire is lit. Don't peek at the dumplings. Don't count the weeks. Just cook. Just write. Just show up. That's the whole recipe.

So here it is — the pot that got us through week one hundred. Chicken and dumplings, the way I’ve made them every time the cold starts to crack and the eaves start dripping and the whole house exhales. It’s not a complicated recipe. Chicken, broth, flour, butter, patience. You simmer, you drop, you cover, you don’t peek. A hundred weeks of this blog and the lesson is still the same one the dumplings teach you: show up, do the work, trust the process.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

For the chicken and broth:

3 1/2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks
8 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

For the dumplings:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped (optional)

Instructions

Simmer the chicken. Place chicken pieces in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot. Pour in the chicken broth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a gentle simmer. Cook for 30 to 35 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and falling off the bone. Skim any foam that rises to the surface. Remove chicken to a cutting board and set aside. Reserve the broth in the pot.
Build the base. In a separate large skillet, melt 3 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 6 to 8 minutes until the vegetables are softened. Add garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper and cook 1 minute more. Sprinkle the 1/3 cup flour over the vegetables and stir constantly for 2 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Slowly whisk in the 1/2 cup milk until smooth.
Combine. Transfer the vegetable mixture into the pot with the reserved broth. Add the bay leaf. Stir well and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. The broth will begin to thicken. While it heats, shred the chicken off the bones, discarding skin and bones. Stir the shredded chicken into the pot. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
Make the dumplings. In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt. Pour in the 3/4 cup milk and melted butter. Stir with a fork until just combined — the dough will be thick and slightly shaggy. Do not overmix. Fold in parsley if using.
Drop and steam. Make sure the broth is at a steady, gentle simmer. Using a large spoon, drop rounded spoonfuls of dough (about 2 tablespoons each) onto the surface of the simmering stew, spacing them slightly apart. You should get 10 to 12 dumplings. Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid. Do not peek. Let the dumplings steam for 15 minutes.
Serve. Remove the lid. The dumplings should be puffed, fluffy, and cooked through. Discard the bay leaf. Ladle the chicken and broth into bowls, topping each with dumplings. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken and Dumplings — A Hundred Weeks of Showing Up