Hard Spring Chicken and Dumplings - Come and Get It

Extra Yummy: Susie Screens “Bound” at Grayhaven Motel

Apr 17, 2025

Today’s offering, “Hard Spring Chicken and Dumplings,” is not only a chosen family recipe. It’s a way to stretch things out, literally and figuratively.

I need the ease, I need the extra, and I hope you do, too.

A recipe that uses every part of the bird is more for your family, more for your friends, and more of using every part you got.

It smells so good.

(After my Dumpling Plan, I’ll tell you about a motel screening (!) I’m doing for the “Bound” film and my part in it. It’s part of my stay in Ithaca, New York, and I’m really looking forward to it. (Go ahead, fly in. Drive in. Cross borders.)

© 2024 Jon Bailiff. Chicken and Dumpling Holding Hands. I asked him to draw it for me and he did.

Chicken and Dumplings Recipe: The Chicken Part

The chicken aspect, is where you can cheat. You don’t have to cook it yourself.

Buy a roasted chicken in your neighborhood, (I’m an COSTCO gal myself, or the local carniceros truck).

Peel off the skin and bones, and put all the delicious roasted flesh and juice in a bowl.

Here’s how you shred the chicken for chicken’n’dumplings— it’s not like anything else:

Place the chicken meat in a Kitchen Aid mixer-bowl, then put on the paddle attachment, and turn onto low. —Not one notch higher.

Watch the paddle for a few seconds, perfectly shredding your chicken. Perfect shreds.

If you take your eyes off the machine for a second, it could go too far and turn your chicken meat to mush. No!

So keep your eye on it, while you laugh at all the time you’re saving.

Don’t want to buy a pre-roasted chicken?

Fine, then buy a fresh spring chicken and poach it. Shred as above.

Of course you can shred it with your hands, too. Just make sure it’s finely shredded.

The Stock

This is the no-cheat part, no getting out of it.

Every time you have a roasted chicken and you eat it all: make stock right after. Save that carcass.

Take the bones, skin, sinew and every part you didn’t eat, and put in a big pot; cover it with water and simmer. That’s all stock is.

Here’s what I add:

LOTS of black pepper and at least 3 tablespoons of salt. Maybe a splash of soy sauce.
A couple unpeeled carrots, whole
A splash of olive oil
A splash of white wine or vermouth
A couple fresh celery stalks
1 whole head of garlic, without peeling it, paper and all
1 big stub of ginger, cut in half
1 onion, cut in half, without peeling off the paper
Anything else you were going to throw in the compost
Any umami you’re fond of1

I had some old cauliflower and dandelion greens and fennel. Fine, in they go.

Set the whole pot to boil.

After 30 minutes of brisk simmer, turn the heat off and use a slotted spoon or a colander to remove all the “stuff,” so all you’ve got left is broth.

Save any extra broth in jars; refrigerate or freeze it. Now you have “heaven’s nectar” to drink on its own, or use in countless recipes. I love heating up a cup of broth. It’s like Good Mommy in a cup.

For the “Chicken and Dumplings” recipe, pour about 8 cups of your stock into a Dutch oven or stew pot.

This habit of making broth with roasted chicken bones is a blessing; you’ll feel cherished every time you make it. Smell the steam. Always have broth around, the way you have milk or coffee.

The Cute Vegetables

The star veggies in “Chicken and Dumplings” are seen, they are pretty. They also need to taste good.

The stars are cutely minced carrots, cutely minced celery, small white boiling onions (buy a pack of frozen onions and save yourself the time) and the must-have green peas. The peas are a story unto themselves.

For the carrots, celery, and (frozen) white baby onions:
Put them in a steamer in the microwave for 10 minutes. Then put them aside. You’ll add them after the dumplings are done.
For the peas: whether frozen or fresh, add them at the very end, or they will shrivel up.
Add the peas for the last 3 minutes, on the stove, and they will cook perfectly. They really are the last thing you do, after the dumplings and the other veggies go in.

Dumplings

My mom would hand-form little balls, that was her style. My friend Shar taught me to roll out the dough like a pie crust, and then cut out little rectangles, approximately 1”x 2”. I like Shar’s the best!

Ingredients

½ cup of parsley
1/4 cups or more of minced chives, dill, and tarragon —the herbs make this sublime
2 cups flour
¼ cup shortening, lard, or butter
1 T. baking powder (if you use self-rising flour, you can skip this)
3 tablespoons of butter, melted in 1 cup of whole milk. (Microwave it)

Mix the herbs, flour and baking powder in a food processor.

Add the cold butter and pulse until it looks like sand.

Transfer to bowl and add warm milk with melted butter which you heat together in microwave.

Now for the roll:

Lay out your pastry cloth on the table and generously flour it.

You can roll out a dumpling or a pie crust on any hard surface, but I swear by a pastry cloth.

The dumpling dough will be a little wet, but just throw it down on your heavily- floured surface and knead a couple times.

Roll it out, with your floured rolling pin, or a drinking glass. You want the thickness of hearty pie crust. It will be wetter than pie dough, but floury enough to handle.

Cut the dough with a sharp knife, scissors, or a pizza cutter into little rectangles, about 1” x 3”.

Spread them on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper. You might need two sheets— you can layer one on top of the other. They can sit there while everything else is happening.

Assembly

Now you have everything ready to go.

Heat the stock to simmer.

Add the shredded chicken.

While the pot is simmering, add the dumpling pieces one at a time, while constantly stirring, so they don’t get stuck in one place.

This is nice to have a friend helping you.

After they’re all added, cover the pot and steam those babies for 10 minutes.

(Covering and steaming is key. Otherwise, you get chewy, rather than tender, dumpling).

Add the “cute” vegetables you had set aside, stir gently.

The Finish

Turn the broth down low, just barely simmering or about to simmer.
Add ¼ cup of whipping cream. So creamy and great.
Add the peas with a thick pat of butter, and keep it barely simmering for 3 minutes.

I’ve probably made this sound harder than it is. It’s easy. If you’re an experienced cook, you’ll hop right on it.

Make stock, save time with roasted chicken, roll out your dumplings, and simmer them with the meat and stock before you add root veggies, then peas. Add more salt and pepper to everything, more than you think.

It’s always more than you think.

A Special Event in Ithaca

Bound Screening & Q+A w/ Susie Bright

Gina Gerson, and Jennifer Tilly, in *Bound*

Mark your calendars for a special evening:

Thursday, May 1st: 6:30 PM – 10:30 PM

Grayhaven Motel in Ithaca, NY, will be screening the iconic film “Bound” in their lounge, followed by a conversation with the legendary Susie Bright.

Yes, there will be popcorn.

Described as “one of the best films of the ’90s” and “a quintessential piece of queer cinema” by Q+, this is an event you won’t want to miss.

6:30pm – Arrive
7:00pm – Film Screening
9:00pm – Susie, a co-writer and consultant on the film, will talk about the making of the film + answer questions.

If you’re coming from out of town, book a night at the Grayhaven, or any of the nearby motels. We can keep talking over coffee in the morning!