Chicken and Dumplings a la Edna Lewis - No. 188

Easy winter comfort plus a quick survey!

Happy Tuesday!

First the news…I’ve just learned you live in all 50 states across America and in 92 countries around the world. To be honest, I had no idea my weekly newsletter could travel so far! And feeling humbled, I need to sit down and ask you a few questions. It’s anonymous, of course, and no-strings attached. I’m just curious what you’d like to read about in Between the Layers, so please take the five-question survey. I would appreciate!

Now, the chicken and dumplings…

This is an American classic recipe my mother made only on occasion even though I recall it was my father’s favorite. His mother had made it for him. And with all the talk about grandmotherly cooking so in vogue right now—tell me, did it ever go out of style?—I thought we’d make some chicken and dumplings today.

And not just anybody’s…those of Edna Lewis. Miss Lewis.

Miss Edna Lewis. Photo: John T. Hill, courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf.

True to Miss Lewis, the recipe comes with some instruction.

From her 1976 book, The Taste of Country Cooking, which eloquently tells of her childhood, I read chicken and dumplings have three components. First is the chicken, which should be fall-apart tender and taste amazing. Next, the stock/broth, which should be naturally thickened, as in no flour or cornstarch and just gelatinous from cooking down with the chicken and bones. Lastly, the dumplings, which should be light and pillowy and mix and mingle with the chicken.

Edna Lewis was born in the spring of 1916 and raised in a farming community of freed slaves called Freetown (now Lahore) in Virginia’s Piedmont region. Her grandfather, Chester Lewis, was a brick mason and had been enslaved. He was granted the land after the Civil War, and families followed and built their homes in a circle around his home. Freetown, she writes in her book, had poetry readings, plays, and singing quartets. Families raised monies to send their children off to school and shared in farm work.

Francis Lam writes in the New York Times in 2015 that Chester and his wife, Lucinda, were illiterate, but they welcomed Isabella Lightfoot, a black Oberlin College graduate, to use part of their home as a school for the children. In Freetown, the people lived close to the land and to each other, and they were self-reliant. In 1984, Edna Lewis told Phil Audibert, a documentarian: ‘‘If someone borrowed one cup of sugar, they would return two. If someone fell ill, the neighbors would go in and milk the cows, feed the chickens, clean the house, cook the food and come and sit with whoever was sick.’’

Edna Lewis would leave home at 16, and move to Washington, D.C. and then New York. She was a cook and a seamstress, able to copy Christian Dior dresses, and her patrons at Cafe Nicholson in the 1940s and Gage & Tollner in the 1950s would encourage her to write. ‘’She was ahead of her time and a great intellectual,’’ said Nathalie Dupree.

Miss Lewis would move to Decatur, Georgia, in later life after befriending chef Scott Peacock and working with him on her last book, The Gift of Southern Cooking. She died in 2006, and was honored in 2014 by a postal stamp with her image.

This chicken and dumplings recipe I make today is what Miss Lewis considered an ideal winter meal for family and friends and should be followed by warm gingerbread.

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Steps one and two: Cook the chicken and make the stock at the same time

I’m beginning to see why chicken and dumplings has been such a favorite. It was a way to make more of a meal out of just one chicken. And it was simple to fix because when you cook the chicken you are creating the broth in which it is served.

Begin with the best chicken you can find. I definitely can taste the difference between an organic, kosher, or locally raised chicken, and honestly, with the price of all meat rising, you might as well pay for a better chicken.

You want a whole chicken you can cut into quarters or about 3 to 4 pounds of chicken parts—breasts with bones, thighs with bones, legs, and wings. Especially those wings. Edna Lewis calls for a couple extra wings because they are the secret to a gelatinous and naturally thickened stock, which means you don’t have to thicken the stock with cream or a roux of butter and flour so it’s much healthier. And once the dumplings start cooking, they thicken it, too.

She sautes her chicken pieces in butter with onion, and I give you the option of using a light oil such as avocado. You don’t want to brown the chicken or the onion, just cook lightly, then pour in the water, add celery with the leaves, salt and pepper, cover, and let simmer until done.

You can absolutely add other seasonings like a few bay leaves, but do not make this without the celery. It needs the celery!

Now make the dumplings nice and light

Unlike dumplings from other cuisines, the dumplings in chicken and dumplings are soft and slippery. They’re a biscuit dough that’s cut into shapes or strips and simmered in the broth. You don’t fill them, and you don’t shape them, but you can cut them into strips, rounds or diamonds, as Miss Lewis preferred.

And if you grew up on chicken and dumplings, you know what I mean. These dumplings are bland, soft, and nostalgic.

But if you don’t love dumplings, you can absolutely bake them off in a 425º oven until crispy. If you like, sprinkle some paprika or Parm on them before baking!

Or, boil half and bake half for a little of both. That’s the way I like it.

A hot oven transforms dumpling dough into crisp biscuits. You can even forgo the steaming and pat all the dough to 1/2-inch thickness, cut into big rounds, and bake until browned. Split them in half and butter while they are hot. Place them in a bowl, and spoon the chicken and broth over the top.

It’s not exactly chicken and dumplings, but I won’t tell, and you will likely not taste anything more comforting on a winter evening. And something tells me that Miss Lewis would approve, too.

How do you make chicken and dumplings?

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Coming Thursday for Paid Subscribers

Souper Bowls just in time for the Super Bowl! I’ll share a white bean soup with frizzled shallots from one of my favorite cookbooks and plenty of links to gametime snacks.

Have a great week, and keep warm!

- xo, Anne

THE RECIPE:

Edna Lewis’s Chicken with Dumplings

Add a few bay leaves, parsley, even chopped carrots, if you like, to the simmering chicken. Begin with 8 cups of water if you are simmering the dumplings. If you decide to bake off the dough into biscuits, reduce the liquid in the pot to 7 cups, or just to cover the chicken.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Prep: 25 to 30 minutes

Cook: 2 hours

• 3 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil

• 3 to 4 pounds chicken with bones

• 3 to 4 extra chicken wings

• 1 medium onion, minced, about 1 cup

• 8 cups water

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 2 ribs celery with leaves

• Dumplings:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

• 2/3 cup whole milk

• Chopped parsley and fresh thyme leaves, for garnish

1. For the chicken, heat a large cooking pot, and add the butter or oil. Place the chicken skin-side down into the fat, and add the minced onion. Cook over low heat until the onions are soft and the chicken just begins to brown, about 3 to 4 minutes, then turn the pieces and repeat. Add the water, salt and pepper, and the celery. Cover the pan, and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer until the chicken has cooked though, 1 hour 30 to 40 minutes.

2. Turn off the heat, and remove the lid. Let the chicken cool in the broth 10 minutes.  Remove the chicken and celery from the broth. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, you can remove the chicken from the bones. For even better flavor, add the bones and skin back to the pot, and bring the mixture to a simmer, covered, for 30 more minutes. Turn off the heat, strain the broth and remove the bones and celery, and return the strained broth to the pot.

3. Make the dumplings. Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Cut the butter into smaller pieces, and with your hands press the butter into the flour mixture until it looks like coarse peas. Pour in the milk, and stir together with a fork until it comes together into a ball.

4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and roll to 1/4-inch thickness for steamed dumplings, or pat to 1/2-inch if rolling out biscuits to bake. Cut into small rounds or 2-inch strips or diamonds. Bring the broth to a simmer and drop the dumplings into the broth a few at a time. Cover the pan, and let the dumplings simmer for 20 minutes, or until tender. Or, cut the dough into rounds, and bake the biscuits at 425º F until lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes, depending on size.

5. To serve, taste the broth and adjust seasoning. Shred the chicken into serving bowls, and spoon the warm broth and dumplings over. (Or split the biscuits into the bowls, top with chicken, and spoon the broth over.) Garnish with fresh thyme and chopped parsley.