Help: This Chicken & Dumpling Recipe is Confusing Me!
Sadly, we had to come back as work called for both of us 
But we shall return! It took us an EIGHT AND A HALF HOUR DRIVE in the snoooooowwww and crazy traffic to get home!
See here:
The skiing was incredible, my birthday wonderful and TR to follow.
In the meantime, can anyone help me understand this recipe? I feel like I am a reasonably intelligent human being, however my reading comprehension skills must be lacking right now because I can’t figure something about this recipe out.
I want to cook it tonight as it’s rainy and gross here in San Francisco and I think a “stick to your ribs” comfort dinner of chicken and dumplings would really hit the spot. This Emeril recipe has great reviews and sounds really good. However, I can’t figure out what you do with the dumplings!! Here, read it. The last thing it has you do is make the dumplings out of flour and put them in the fridge, as quoted:
Cut into long strips 1-inch wide. Transfer to a large plate or baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until ready to use.
But then, he doesn’t mention using them again until he says this:
Place the dumplings on top of the chicken mixture and gently stir into the hot liquid. Cover and simmer until the dumplings are cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Whaaa? Huh? Am I missing something? How do your refrigerated strips of dough become dumplings?? What are you supposed to do? I don’t understand! Help!
I think the recipe is missing a few steps of the instructions- are you supposed to stuff the dumplings with your chicken mixture? Just form those 1″ strips into little balls of doughy dumplings?
This is very frustrating because the food.tv recipes always seem to be so reliably good and also this particular chicken and dumpling recipe has SEVENTY SIX positive reviews! Seventy six people already cooked this and no one noticed that there’s a step missing? Or am I just being incredibly daft and completely missing it myself…
Please help!
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9 Comments
I think the dumplings are supposed to be more like “noodles” in this recipe rather than a traditional biscuit dumpling. So that is why they are saying just put the strips of dough into the broth until they cook. I would assume that you could roll the dough strips into balls and dump those into the broth, might just take a little longer to cook the dumplings all the way through….
Hope it turns out well!
What I do when I make dumplings is I make the chicken part first and while that is cooking I make my dumplings. As soon as I have those ready and the chicken is done I drop the dumplings into the pot one at a time so they don’t stick together. I usually turn down the heat and put the lid on and let them cook for a good 10 minutes or so and then it’s done!
You could check them after 5 minutes and turn them over if you want.
Hope that helps!
Angela
I may be wrong here, but it sounds like you had the same issue that I had when I made chicken and dumplings (different recipe). The dumplings get cooked IN the stew! Is that your confusion? Are you expecting to bake them first, and that’s why you feel like you’re missing a step? Or is it just because of the strip thing?
Either way, go ahead and drop the dough into the stew mixture. If you want something more like round dumplings, I’d say go ahead and do that instead of the strips!
Yes, when he says “chicken mixture” he just means “pot with all the stuff in it including the chicken.” The dumplings will almost certainly puff up when they are cooked – did you ever make matzoh ball soup?
sounds like this is more of a chicken and noodle recipe
LOL, what they said! I guess the omitted step is to take them out of the fridge. ::smile::
Test comment! Thank you Earl for fixing my broken comments.
Glad you got home ok.
You dump the dumplings in,
but I cut them with a turned over juice glass
like biscuits.
Thanks for commenting on my blog today. Yes, some of foodnetwork recipes can be really confusing. Usually I have to read the instructions like five times until I really get it. This recipe is actually pretty good. I hope you like it. Good luck!