Poultry – Page 5 – Courage in the Kitchen

Aunt Dorothy’s Chicken Supreme

There was a lull in customers at the meat counter, so the butcher and I chatted for a minute. Since he had some gray in his hair, I felt a certain kinship with him and risked asking whether his mother had made dishes with cream of mushroom soup poured over meat and various other ingredients. When he said she had, I asked him if he liked the results.

“What’s not to like?” was his response. His eyes glazed a little, like mine do when I think of green bean casserole. If you grew up in the 1950’s or 60’s, you almost certainly ate Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup at least once a week.

Introduced by the Campbell Soup Company in 1934, cream of mushroom soup was featured in the company’s first full length cookbook, Easy Ways to Good Meals, in 1941. You may have thought that you were eating Tuna Noodle Casserole, African Chow Mein, Oregon Hot Dish, Chicken Crunch or Mixed Vegetable Hot Dish, but they all were made with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup or a store brand substitute.

That soup was ubiquitous and not just in a bowl in front of you. There was green bean casserole, of course, and on Sundays you might have had Pork Chops with Mushroom Gravy or dishes like Grandma Hopp’s Meatloaf. All have cream of mushroom soup as a major ingredient.

I have been smothering pork chops with cream of mushroom soup since I was old enough to use a can opener, but I had never tried that technique with chicken until I finally decided to make Aunt Dorothy’s Chicken Supreme. The recipe she sent me was designed for a larger gathering than we usually have at our home, so I reduced the quantities significantly.

Despite my foresight, Jerri packaged enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow and put three tender and tasty pieces of chicken in the freezer for dinner at a date to be announced. Aunt Dorothy’s recipes are made to feed a battalion. There is a reason.

When we received the invitation to her 90th birthday celebration, this photo on the back of the card showed the family members who showed up last year to observe her 89th birthday. There were more for her 90th. Word is, Aunt Dorothy has sixty-six direct descendants. We should all have so many people watching out for us.

You don’t need a big family to justify this recipe. Invite some friends for Sunday dinner or plan on having leftovers.

INGREDIENTS:

3 lbs. chicken pieces
1/3 cup flour
3/4 tsp. paprika
1/3 – 1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
3 T butter
1/3 cup water
2 cans cream of mushroom soup

PROCEDURE:

Rinse the chicken under cold water and allow it to drain while you prepare the flour. Mix the flour with the paprika, salt and pepper in a paper bag. Preheat the oven to 400º and melt the butter in a small pan or microwavable dish.

Pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towels and dust them a few at a time in the bag. Put the pieces skin side down in a single layer in a nine by thirteen-inch baking dish or pan. Dribble the melted butter over the chicken.

Bake on the center shelf of the oven for twenty minutes, then turn the pieces and return the pan to the oven to bake for another twenty minutes.

Mix a third cup of water with the mushroom soup in a bowl until you have a smooth batter. Spoon the thinned soup equally over the chicken in the pan and return it to the oven. Bake for another twenty to thirty minutes until the chicken is tender.

Serve with a green vegetable, boiled potatoes and salad.

NOTES: Aunt Dorothy noted that her recipe which called for five pounds of chicken and three cans of mushroom soup made “ten good servings.” “Good,” I think, means large, though it may also mean servings suitable for active teenagers.

I wondered how the dish would look as it came from the oven. Perhaps I should have thinned the soup a bit more, but the chicken looked so inviting in the baking dish that I would not be ashamed to set it on the table in front of guests.

A note on salt. We usually cook with unsalted butter, so I used a half teaspoon of salt. If you use salted butter, you should reduce the salt to a third of a teaspoon. Remember, diners can always add a little salt if they wish, but salt is very difficult to remove from a dish when it has been cooked.

Chicken and Dumplings

As I have written elsewhere, our chickens were free range birds. Their feathers were clean, their eggs had golden yolks and their meat was firm and flavorful. A friend recently gave us a big six pound free range chicken that brought back memories for both Jerri and me of what real chicken tastes like.

I roasted it, but though it was young and tender it would have added a lot of flavor to a pot of chicken and dumplings. The best bird for that wonderful stew is a mature hen or rooster at least a year old that has had free run of the yard. Sometimes supermarkets will have “stewing hens,” which are a good second choice, but fryers are always available and do the job if you compensate for their relative lack of flavor by adding some bouillon cubes.

Mom made chicken and dumplings mostly in the fall and winter. That was when she culled older hens that were not laying regularly. “Dad,” she would say, “would you chop the head off that big Rhode Island hen with the frostbitten comb before you go to work. We’ll have chicken and dumplings tonight.”

So my father would do his best to get the right hen for Mom to pluck, dress and cook for supper. Mom’s chicken and dumplings are something that I think all of us kids still remember fondly. This is not my mother’s recipe, which she probably never wrote down, but it produces a delicious meal that needs only a few slices of good bread to help sop up the gravy to make it almost perfect. If you want it to be perfect, add a salad.

INGREDIENTS:

For the stew:
1 chicken or the equivalent in thighs, wings and breast pieces, about 3 to 4 lbs.
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1/2 tsp. tarragon
Dash or two of hot sauce
Water to cover the meat
3 medium sized potatoes
1 small onion
3 medium carrots
1 1/2 cups green peas, fresh or frozen
2 T parsley
3 T cornstarch
1/4 cup water

For the dumplings:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1 T baking powder
1 large egg
2-5 T milk

If using a whole chicken, cut it into pieces, put it into a Dutch oven or large soup pot along with the bouillon cubes and cover it with water a half inch above the pieces of chicken. Bring the Dutch oven to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the meat is tender but not falling off the bones, about an hour.

Prepare the vegetables while the chicken is cooking. Peel and chop the potatoes into a half inch dice. Clean and chop the onion into a quarter to eighth-inch dice. Scrape or peel the carrots and chop them into half inch rounds. Clean and finely chop the parsley.

Remove the chicken from the Dutch oven and set the pieces aside. Put the vegetables and spices into the Dutch oven over moderate heat. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer the vegetables and parsley, except the green peas. Debone the chicken, cut the meat into bite-sized pieces and add them to the vegetables.

Continue simmering the meat and vegetables while you make the dumplings. Start by sifting the dry ingredients together into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Beat the egg until lemon colored, then whip in two tablespoons of whole milk. Stir the egg and milk into the dry ingredients, adding more milk until you have a dough that you can drop by spoonfuls into the boiling broth.

Dissolve the cornstarch into the quarter cup of water and stir it into the broth. Cook for about three minutes, then taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. You may want to add a teaspoon of instant chicken bouillon or another bouillon cube. Stir in the peas and raise the heat under the Dutch oven. When the broth is boiling, use two teaspoons to drop dumplings onto the broth. Scrape a heaping teaspoon of dough from one spoon with the other.

Cover and cook the dumplings for twelve minutes without removing the cover. When you take off the cover this is what you will see.

After twelve minutes have passed, remove one of the larger dumplings to check for doneness by cutting it in half. If it is not done, return the dumpling to the Dutch oven, replace the cover and cook another two or three minutes.

Serve with bread and salad.