A recent email caught my eye, one about the controversy surrounding chicken and dumplings. Never having known that this was an issue, I read the story and discovered what the debate was all about: flat, rolled, cut dumplings vs. fluffy, puffy ones.
And I won’t even go into the topic of creamy, thick chicken and dumplings as opposed to a thin broth with vegetables in it, something that, in my book, is more akin to chicken soup than chicken and dumplings. I’ve always been of the mind that chicken and dumplings must be on the thick and creamy side.
(READ MORE: Rave Recipes: Chicken and dumplings ‘always a treat’)
Aside from that, I wish that, in our household, the debate is over rolled vs. flat or thick vs. thin. At my house, the debate is love vs. hate. I love them, but my husband thoroughly dislikes them. He was born and raised in the South, so for the life of me, I can’t figure out his aversion to chicken and dumplings. To me, it’s part of our culture and should be as much loved by any Southerner as fried green tomatoes, grits and Krystal hamburgers.
I still make them, but that puts me in a position of having to make another meal for my husband or tell him he’s on his own for takeout. But that puts me in another quandary of having a boatload of chicken and dumplings. As much as I love them, I certainly couldn’t sit down and eat an entire potful. Fortunately, they do freeze well. If you find yourself in the same position, I would suggest freezing them in individual quart-size bags so you can pull out just one serving at a time.