Love this recipe. It’s super simple and super yummy. A close friend of mine showed it to me and I’ve been using it ever since. It takes a wee bit of time but the results are drop dead yummy. Another plus is it’s made in a single pot… Easy peasy.
From start to finish this can be made in about hour. The active time required is about 30 min.
What you need:
1 cup white wine
4 cups of chicken stock – see note at the end of recipe
About two tble of sour cream
A carrot
A large onion. White onions are little less in your face then cooking onions and hold their texture well when cooked.
A rib of celery
Any other veggies you would like to add
1-2 lbs of dark chicken meat.
2 tbls of olive oil or sauteing
2 tbls of cold butter
2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper for seasoning
About a cup of flour
1/2 a beaten egg
1/4 of buttermilk
To start:
The chicken.
Buy 1 -2 lbs of dark chicken meat. You can cook the snot out of dark meat and it will not toughen up as much as breast meat. It also has more flavour. You want skin off and boneless. You can do this yourself or buy it prefab. I generally use about a pound or so.Clean the chicken and Cut it up into bite size chunks.
The veggies.
In my minds eye/mouth, I can see pretty much any veg working in this recipe, but I like to keep it simple. Onions, carrots and cellery are where it’s at. You can throw in potaotes if you feel like skipping the dumplings or really dig lots of starchy goodness in your stew. Corn, peas, beans, mushrooms and broccoli are all fair game. Rough chop your veggies, again aiming for solid bite sized morsels.
In a large heavy bottomed, deep pan or large heavy bottomed pot, heat 1tbls of olive oil and 1/2 tbls of butter over medium/high heat. Brown chicken morsels. Remove and reserve. Use a small portion of the white wine to deglazw the pan with a wooden spoon. Add more oil and butter if needed and sweat veggies until soft. Add remaing wine, chicken, herbs and stock. At this point you want to have a pan full of chicken and veggies just covered by stock and wine. Bring to a boil and then reduce temperature to a gentle simmer with the lid off.
In a mixing bowl gently incorporate buttermilk and egg into the flour. Do not overwork the mixture. Mix until the ingredients are incorporated. The consistency should be wet and sticky but not runny.
It should be able to hold it’s shape on it’s own but fairly sticky to your fingers. Fold in the chopped Rosemary and season with salt and pepper. Using two small spoons make bite sized dumplings and nestle them into the gently simmering stew.For extra fluffy dumplings add a pinch of baking powder.
Your stew is ready when the dumplings are cooked through. Before serving stir in a teaspoon of cold butter chunks and season with salt and pepper to taste. Finally, quickly stir in the sour cream.
I usually serve this in a big bowl with few good sized slices of crusty bread for.
A note on stock.
Homemade is say better then prefab, it can be made in about 45 mins and keeps well in the freezer. More importantly, it will reduce with pleasurable results – prefab will not. If you must use prefab, spend the money on the most natural looking stock you can find. Also avoid stocks with high sodium, look for sodium reduced.