Chicken 'n Biscuit Dumplings

by Kat Kinsman, Posted Jan 13th 2009 @ 5:00PM

The best thing about embarking on a mission to perfect one's biscuit making? You end up with an awful lot of delicious biscuits to eat. The worst thing? Holy heck, that's a lot of biscuits. I'm lucky enough to be married to an enthusiastic biscuit eater, but I don't want to try his patience too badly this early on, 'cause there are dozens more batches to be rolled out before the year is up.

Solution -- adapt one of his most dearly beloved dishes, his grandmother and mother's Memama and Mimiwag's Chicken & Dumplings a bit to accommodate extra biscuits as ersatz dumplings. The original recipe employs long, rolled strips of dough (which some have argued render it as a much more regionally specific Chicken & Pastry formation, but that's a whole 'nother post), but in lieu of that, I halved the biscuits (from the best batch thus far -- #6 White Lily All Purpose with 50/50 Lard/Butter) and stewed them into the sumptuous broth of a whole, cooked-down chicken until they were softened, but not soggy. That night, with a side of sauteed, vinegar-dashed Swiss chard, it was heaven. Two days later, plated with tangy collards -- otherworldy.

Have a favored use for extra biscuits? I beg of you, share it in the comments below.

Recipes is after the jump.

Chicken 'n Biscuit Dumplings

1 (3 to 4 lb) broiler-fryer chicken
2 quarts plus 1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon salt
1/3 stick of butter, melted
2 teaspoons black pepper
4-8 biscuits

Stew entire chicken in 2 quarts of water, adding two stalks of celery and a chopped onion to the water for flavor. Cook for about an hour, until the chicken is falling off the bone.

Remove the chicken from the pot and save the stock.
Cool the chicken, then remove bones, fat and skin.
Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and return to the stockpot.

Add the the butter and the pepper to the stock, stir, pull each biscuit in half, drop them into the pot and continue to stir gently.

Turn heat to low and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.

Filed Under: Recipes
Tags: america, baking, biscuit, biscuit mission, biscuit recipe, BiscuitMission, BiscuitRecipe, biscuits, chicken, chicken and biscuits, chicken and dumplings, chicken and pastry, chicken biscuits, chicken dumplings, ChickenAndBiscuits, ChickenAndDumplings, ChickenAndPastry, ChickenBiscuits, ChickenDumplings, comfort food, guilty pleasures, kat kinsman, KatKinsman, leftovers, poultry, southern cooking, southern food, southern states, SouthernCooking, SouthernFood

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-13-2009 @5:20PM Matt_M said... It's hard to go wrong with pigs-in-a-blanket for spare biscuits. Also, though a traditionally holiday side, you can make a stuffing/dressing out of them easily.

Also, you could add enough sugar to slow the rising to make a dense, sweet biscuit for dessert... but that's just theory, I haven't tried that myself yet.
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1-13-2009 @5:47PM Samme said... My first thought it the classic biscuits-and-gravy for leftover biscuits. The American Heart Association has a really good really low-fat chicken-sausage gravy recipe that can help minimize the sat fat in the meal.
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1-13-2009 @10:40PM MattT said... I frequently use American biscuit recipes to make scones - the higher fat-to-flour ratio and comparatively wet dough makes a moister, more buttery product than most Australian recipes. So why not treat them the way we treat scones? Split, butter, then lavish with strawberry jam and whipped cream. We also do savoury scones - top them with grated cheddar before baking, split, butter then top with ham and tomato.

Finally, and somewhat heretically, you can use biscuit dough to make a kind of pizza peculiar to rural Australia and parts of New Zealand. Gently press into a deep baking tray, top like a regular pizza, bake and serve. We just did ham and pineapple, but I have an article from Gastronomica that discusses a NZ variation that involves pineapple, ham, two kinds of bacon, cheese and (wait for it) canned spaghetti.
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1-14-2009 @1:21PM Lindsey said... I wonder if you could make bread pudding out of leftover biscuits?
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1-14-2009 @9:10PM Kat Kinsman said... Lindsay -- I hadn't considered it, but I know what I'm gonna try this weekend. Thanks!
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1-19-2009 @2:51PM Amy McDaniel said... In my family, we split leftover biscuits, butter them, top them with cheddar cheese, and stick them in the toaster oven until the cheese is bubbling. You can also do cinnamon-sugar instead of cheese. Reheated like this, the biscuits retain their crunchiness.

I've never done this with leftovers, but I bet you could make very nice strawberry shortcakes, New England style.
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