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Three variations on chicken and dumplings

In which I had several sick people with varying dietary restrictions to feed, and leftovers from a 16.5-pound roast turkey (among other things) with which to feed them.

The largest ingredient was the broth and leftover turkey -- it turns out that one can make an astounding amount of broth from this quantity of turkey carcass and leftover bits. About a gallon and a half, I would guess. In addition to the broth, we had the two drumsticks and a 6-cup-sized Pyrex bowlful of leftover carved bits, all of which I shredded into bite-sized or smaller bits.

Basic Turkey and Dumplings

This is based on the recipe from my great-grandmother -- my mom's dad's mother. It makes me think of Grandad, because this was a recipe that he had opinions about. In particular, he held that one should not debone the chicken, because the bones add flavor. My mom is of the opinion that this makes it rather annoying to eat, so she debones it. I don't actually know how Great Grandma Sally did it. Personally, in this case I deboned the turkey bits, but I also boiled the bones in the stock for an extra hour or so to get more flavor out of them first.

I started with roughly a gallon of broth and 6 cups of loosely-shredded turkey, combining the leftovers with bits pulled off the carcass after it was thoroughly boiled. (The original recipe for this starts with a whole chicken (cut up) boiled in sufficient water to cover it.)

"Dumplings" (which are actually more like noodles):

• 4 cups flour


• 1 tsp baking powder (optional; it's not in the original recipe, but I added it this time.)


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1 stick butter


• 1 cup broth

Whisk the dry ingredients together, cut in the butter and then crumble the mixture together with hands until the butter is well distributed. Make a well in the middle, pour in the broth, and stir in with a fork. Once it gets too stiff for the fork, mix with hands to form into dough, and knead enough to make the texture even. Unlike pastry, you don't need to worry about overworking it; you want a little toughness. Add flour if needed to make it not-sticky. Roll out to about 1/8" thick, and cut (With the back of a table knife works well) into 1/2" strips.

Bring the broth in the pot to a boil, put in the dumpling strips (one at a time, so they don't stick) and the shredded turkey, and cook until the dumplings are cooked through -- 45 to 75 minutes according to the recipe; this took a little bit less than that. You test by pulling a dumpling out and cutting it. Towards the end, add some coarse-ground black pepper.

Vegetarian Carrots and Dumplings

This was basically the above recipe, but I replaced the broth with 4 cups of good storebought veggie broth (mostly carrot and onion and celery based) and 2 cups of water, boiled a large carrot's worth of carrot slices and 8 large mushrooms in it for a half-hour, and pureed the mushrooms and put them back in. Then I made half a recipe of the dumplings using milk instead of broth, and added some salt because I'd used low-salt broth and it needed a bit more.

Gluten/Dairy-Free Turkey and Dumplings

This is based on this recipe from King Arthur Flour, though adjusted to ingredients on hand since I didn't have "baking mix". (This results from not reading the recipe closely before going to the store!)

Soup:

• 2 1/2 cups turkey broth


• 1 1/2 cups shredded turkey


• 2-3 Tbsp cornstarch, mixed with a bit of water to make a milky liquid

This part is simple: Put everything in a pot, and set to gently simmer.

Dumplings:

• a bit more than 3/4 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour. (I used Bob's Red Mill's version, which is mostly bean-based, as opposed to King Arthur Flour's, which is largely rice-based.)


• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder


• 1/3 cup broth


• 2 Tbsp "Earth Balance" non-dairy spread (margarine, essentially), melted


• 1 egg

Mix dry ingredients, then mix in liquid ingredients. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup of the flour, but that came out too soupy, so I added a little bit more flour. I was still pretty runny, but slightly thicker than pancake batter -- more like cake batter or so.

Bring the "soup" part to a boil, spoon in spoonfuls of the dumpling batter (basically covering the top), cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

This was a general success, but it also dirties all the dishes....

Crossposted from Dreamwidth (original here), with comments. Comment here or there; comments here will eventually be duplicated to there.