Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and dumplings — a whole chicken simmered until falling apart in a rich broth, then strips or balls of biscuit-like dough cooked in the same broth until tender — is the Southern comfort food that occupies the same emotional territory as matzo ball soup (AM4-13) in the Jewish tradition and *phở* in the Vietnamese: the restorative, the cure, the food that grandmothers make when something has gone wrong. The Southern tradition splits into two dumpling styles: **flat dumplings** (rolled and cut into strips, like thick noodles — the Appalachian and Deep South standard) and **drop dumplings** (spooned from a soft dough into the broth, producing pillowy rounds — the upper South standard). Both are correct; the preference reveals geography.

A whole chicken simmered in water with celery, onion, carrot, and herbs for 1-2 hours until the meat falls from the bone. The chicken is removed, the meat shredded, the broth strained. Dumplings — either flat strips (rolled from a flour-shortening-milk dough and cut into 3cm-wide strips) or drop rounds (spooned from a biscuit-like dough) — are cooked in the simmering broth for 10-15 minutes. The shredded chicken returns to the pot. The broth should be thick and slightly cloudy from the starch the dumplings release — this is the desired consistency, not a flaw.

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