Make chicken and dumplings the southern way, with flat or slick dumplings. Up the ante by seasoning your dumplings and making them with some bacon fat or chicken fat. Yes. Approximate cooking times for both pressure cooker/Instant Pot and Dutch oven included.
2Tablespoonssolid chicken fatbacon fat, butter, or shortening (or a mix. Your call)
¾cupwhole milk
Instructions
For the Chicken
Remove the pouch of giblets from the cavity of your chicken and use for another purpose. If your chicken came with a neck, you can cook that right along with the rest.
In your Instant Pot or a Dutch oven, place the chicken (and neck, if you have one), boxed stock, onion, garlic, vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning and smoked pepper or peppercorns.
Bring up to pressure and cook at high pressure for 33 minutes. (If using a Dutch oven, simmer over medium-low heat until the chicken is cooked through and you have a nice, rich stock, about 2 hours. You may have to flip the chicken to get it to cook evenly).
For the most tender meat, allow for complete natural pressure release, about 30 minutes. If cooking in a Dutch oven, allow the meat to cool in the pot.
Carefully remove all the meat from the carcass, get rid of as many bones and onion pieces as you can. Once you've removed most of the larger pieces, pour the stock through a strainer to get all the little bits.
Return the meat to the pot, cool and then refrigerate overnight.
The next day, spoon off the layer of chicken fat from the surface of the stock. You can use this in your dumplings, to make matzo ball soup, or you can discard.
Place your Instant Pot insert back in your Instant Pot and turn to saute or place your Dutch oven over. Stir occasionally until the stock has melted back to liquid (it will probably be like soft Jello straight from the fridge). You don't have to make it hot at this point, just warm enough to melt the gelatin in the stock.
Pour the stock and chicken through a strainer. Press down on the chicken to get as much of the stock as possible. Refrigerate the chicken.
Taste the broth and adjust seasonings if necessary.
Turn the Instant Pot back to saute and bring stock to a rolling boil. If using a Dutch oven, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat. Drop dumplings (procedure below) into the pot, a few at a time so they don't stick together.
Boil for about 15-20 minutes, or until dumplings are cooked through. NOTE: A few of the smaller bits of dumpling may dissolve, and that's totally fine. This is what thickens your broth into a silky, dreamy gravy.
Return the reserved chicken to the pot to reheat, about 5 minutes.
Serve in bowls with a fork and a spoon. Have some good bread or rolls handy to sop up the extra sauce.
Enjoy!
For the Dumplings
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, poultry seasoning and black pepper.
Drop in the chicken fat, bacon fat, butter, or shortening, and rub in with your fingertips until it is completely incorporated. No pea-sized pieces here. You want it to disappear.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stream in the milk.
Bring the dough together with a fork. It will be fairly wet.
Liberally flour your counter.
Scrape the dumpling dough onto the floured surface. Liberally flour the top of the dough and roll out into a rough rectangle about 1/8-3/16" thick. If the dough sticks, add some more flour to assist with rolling, but don't knead it in. Use your dough scraper to lift the dough and toss some flour underneath and add some to the top as necessary.
Brush excess flour off the top of the dough. Cut into 2"x3" rectangles (don't measure--just use a pizza cutter and go for it), and they're ready to be cooked.
Notes
Using boxed chicken stock for the initial cooking liquid adds depth and intense chicken flavor to the dish.You don't have to use bacon fat in the dumplings. You don't even have to season the dumplings. But I think you'll be happy if you do both!Notice I'm not giving weights here. No need to be super precise, even with the dumplings.