Grandma’s chicken and dumplings

I’m posting this to fill a request from someone who read The Power of Food #2 post. . . and because Grandma would be tickled by the thought of me passing it on to the world . . .

Chicken and Dumplings . . . Fegyvernek Style

For the “stew” part:
one chicken, cut up into pieces
a medium onion, yellow or other sharp variety, chopped
a little bacon fat or lard (I use an olive oil/butter mix nowadays)
parsley, fresh or dried (a couple of tablespoons if dried, twice that if fresh)
paprika (sweet, not hot, Hungarian paprika)
salt and pepper
water

For the dumplings (a large batch. You can halve this recipe.)
4 eggs
about 1½ cups of water
½ teaspoon salt
3 to 3½ cups flour

Lightly brown the onion in the fat you’ve chosen in a large pot. Then add the paprika and stir for a minute or so. Add the parsley, chicken pieces, salt and pepper and enough water to barely cover the chicken. Cover and simmer until done, about ½ to 1 hour depending on the size of your chicken pieces. Remove the chicken from the pot and put it in a bowl. Cover to keep it warm.

Add more water to the pot (an inch or so, maybe two or three if you make the whole recipe for dumplings), put the cover on and bring it to a boil as you prepare the dumplings.

Beat the eggs and salt with a fork in a plastic bowl. (You can use any bowl but it’s good if it’s lightweight because you’re going to hold it over the boiling broth as you drop the dumplings into the pot.) Add about 1½ cups water to the eggs mixture and beat again. Add the flour and beat until it has a “sticky” consistency. This is wetter than regular bread dough.

Uncover your pot of boiling broth and hold the bowl of dumpling dough just over it. Tilt it toward the pot. Dip a teaspoon into the hot broth, then go up to the bowl and scoop about ½ teaspoon full of dough and drop it into the broth. Repeat, dipping the spoon into the broth and scooping a little dough into it until all the dough is gone. Move the bowl around so that you drop the dumplings more or less evenly over the whole pot. DO NOT STIR THE DUMPLINGS YET!

Cover the pot and let it boil about 7 to 10 minutes. NOW YOU CAN STIR THE DUMPLINGS. Cook them for another 5 to 10 minutes, add the chicken back into the pot and reheat it for a few minutes. You’re ready to serve. (I like to sprinkle on a little fresh parsley at the end, but Grandma didn’t do that.)

Family food feud

When my dad was alive (he died in 1959) we didn’t eat these at my house. He called this style of  dumplings “bullets” and wasn’t having any of them. As a French-Canadian, he knew dumplings as fluffy clouds that floated over beef stew. But I ate them every time I stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s and that was often. My mother deferred to Dad’s tastes and always made him his fluffy, with-baking-powder, favorites, and always over beef, not chicken, stew.

I’m not sure why but I never asked Ma how to make fluffy dumplings. But I learned, as a very young girl, how to make bullets because I loved them. In that wonderful alchemy of genetic stew that makes a baby, I ended up with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. My dad had wavy brunette hair and hazel eyes. I adored him . . . but I’ve always loved the bullet dumplings best . . . and I never halve the recipe.