From the Church Cookbook: Chicken and Dumplings, the First Cool-Weather Supper

The first cool evening of the year arrives, and a Southern cook reaches for the big pot before she knows why.

You feel it come, even down here where it comes late. The air lets go of some of its weight. You step out on the porch after supper and there is a thinness to it, a little edge. The first faint word of fall.

Something hears that word. Something reaches for the pot.

Chicken and dumplings is the supper for that evening. It is not summer food. Summer food is quick and cold and eaten half-standing. This is the other thing. This is the food you make when you are ready to be inside again, when a pot can simmer all afternoon and fog the kitchen window, when the whole point is to slow down and let a thing take the time it takes.

It is humble food. It came up out of thrift, out of making one hen feed a table, out of stretching a little meat with a little flour and calling it plenty.

Which it is. My grandmother made it in a dented pot and would have laughed at anybody who tried to improve it.

There are two great arguments about dumplings in the South, and I will settle neither. Both sides are right in their own kitchens. The first is rolled versus dropped. Rolled dumplings are cut into flat strips and go slick and tender, more like a thick noodle. Dropped dumplings are spooned in as soft dough and come out fluffy, more like a biscuit. My people rolled them. Yours may have dropped them. Make peace with your raising and cook it the way you love it.

The second argument is whether the broth should be thin and brothy or thick and creamy. Same answer. Cook it the way home tastes to you.

Here is the plain, forgiving version to start from.

Chicken and Dumplings

Serves about 6.

Ingredients

For the chicken and broth

• 1 whole chicken, about 3 to 4 pounds (a hen is traditional and worth it if you can find one)
• 2 quarts water, or enough to cover
• 2 stalks celery, halved
• 1 onion, quartered
• 2 carrots, halved
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt and black pepper

For the rolled dumplings

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons cold butter or shortening
• About 3/4 cup of the hot chicken broth (or milk), a little at a time

To finish

• A little more butter
• Black pepper, plenty

Instructions

1. Put the chicken in a large pot with the water, celery, onion, carrots, bay leaves, and a good pinch of salt. Bring it to a boil, drop it to a low simmer, cover, and let it go until the meat is tender and falling from the bone, about an hour to an hour and a quarter.
2. Lift the chicken out to cool enough to handle. Strain the broth and return it to the pot. Discard the vegetables and bay leaves, or don’t. Your kitchen, your rules. You want a deep pot of clean, seasoned broth. Taste it. Salt it until it tastes like something.
3. Make the dumplings while the chicken cools. Stir the flour and salt together. Cut in the cold butter with a fork or your fingers until it looks like coarse meal. Add the hot broth a little at a time, stirring, until you have a stiff dough that holds together. Turn it out onto a well-floured counter, roll it thin, about as thin as a nickel, and cut it into strips or squares an inch or two across.
4. Bring the broth back to a gentle boil. Drop the dumplings in a few at a time, stirring so they don’t stick. Let them cook at a low bubble until done through and the broth has thickened from the flour, about 15 to 20 minutes.
5. While they cook, pull the chicken from the bones in good-sized pieces and stir it back in. Finish with a little butter and more black pepper than you think you need. Let it rest off the heat a few minutes. It thickens as it sits.

It feeds 6 with seconds and a little left for the next day, which is when it is arguably best.

Serve it in bowls, nothing on the side but maybe a slice of bread to catch what’s left. Eat it slow. Let the window fog.

That first cool evening comes but once a year. This is the right way to meet it.

The South, shared.