Chicken & Dumplings - RC Week 4

Why does white flour have to taste so good??  Yup, we've permitted a bag of the white stuff back in the house for this challenge.  And wow, the dumplings here were delicious.  White flour + butter + stewy chicken = yummy.

4 tbsp olive oil
4 to 5 lb chicken, quartered
1/2 cup flour

Sauce:
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
6 tbsp flour
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped (I omitted this because as we all know, celery is gross)
1 leek, chopped
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 1/4 tsp Polish spice (no idea what this is so I used herbs de provence)
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup white wine
5 1/2 cups chicken stock
dash of siracha

Dumplings:
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp parsley, minced
3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup braising liquid from chicken

heat oil in saucepan.  Dredge chicken in flour and saute in oil for 5 minutes until golden brown.  Remove from pot.  Remove excess grease from pot and add butter and flour.  Cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes.  Now add garlic, onion, carrots, celery (if you must), leek, mushrooms, spice and bay leaf.  Cook for about 2 mintues

Add remaining sauce ingredients.  Bring to boil.  Add chicken.  Reduce heat and simmer with pot slightly covered for 1 hour.  After 45 minutes, remove 3/4 cup of cooking liquid and reserve for dumplings.

After 1 hour, remove lid, turn heat way down.  Place dumplings on top of stewing chicken, cover completely and let cook for another 25 minutes.

Dumplings:
In mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, pepper and parsley.  Cut butter into flour mixture.  Add reserved braising liquid and stir until dry ingredients are just moistened.  Turn out the dough on floured work surface and pat into a 6x6 inch road.  Cut dough into 1 inch squares, roll into a round and place in stew.  Or you can skip all the rolling and just make dough balls which is what I did.  Me and rolling dough just don't work.

Serve piping hot.

Yummy!!