3-pound chicken
Onion, peeled and left whole
¼ cup celery leaves, chopped
2½ teaspoons salt, divided
¾ teaspoon pepper
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup milk
3 tablespoons shortening
½ teaspoon baking soda
Make a simple chicken broth by adding two quarts of water to a Dutch oven. Then add two teaspoons of salt and the chicken. Cover and bring to a boil. Once the base is boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and add in your pepper, celery leaves and whole, peeled onion. Now, my Dutch oven didn’t have room for the whole onion, so I just cut it in half and fit it in on either side of the chicken. I don’t think Dolly would mind!
With all your ingredients inside, replace the cover and let this simmer away until the chicken starts to come away from the bone.
When the chicken is nice and tender, you can turn off the heat and remove it from the pot to cool. Then take the broth you’ve made and strain it. I just used a simple mesh sieve, so a few smaller bits of onion and celery remained. If you want your broth to be clearer, you can use cheesecloth.
Then, once the chicken is cooler to handle, start to remove the meat. Since the chicken is so tender, it will pull apart pretty easily. If you do have some larger pieces, like the chicken breast, cut it into one-inch pieces.
With your broth strained, return it to the Dutch oven and bring to a boil. While this is going, you can start to make the dumplings. It’s pretty simple—almost like making a biscuit. Just whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Then cut in the shortening until it’s in pea-sized pieces. You can do this with your hands, but I like using a pastry blender to keep the shortening cold.
Once that’s combined, stir in your milk. After this has come together as a dough, turn it out onto the countertop (be sure to dust it with a little flour first) and knead for a few minutes.
With the dough ready, roll it out until it’s about a half-inch thick. From there, cut it into an inch to inch-and-a-half squares.
At this point, that broth should be boiling. Being careful, spoon the dumplings into the broth, cover your pot and cook for ten minutes. After that, stir in your chicken and cook until heated through.