What is a dumpling?

What is a dumpling? The dictionary claims it to be either a rounded mass of steamed and seasoned dough, often served with soup or meat, or a dessert consisting of a wrapping of dough enclosing sliced apples or other fruit, boiled or baked. I consider a dumpling to be the part of a soup including: chicken, dumplings, seasonings, and the gravy with just the right thickness. There are several key factors to my chicken and dumplings. It has to be skinless chicken legs, bisquick to make the dumplings, country crock butter, and nature’s seasoning.

People all over the world eat dumplings. Anywhere from Korea and Japan to Germany and Russia. In every country they are made different ways. In some they are dough wrapped in shark skin. In others they are made of potatoes instead of flour. Even in America they are made several different ways. Some people, like my family, use drop dumplings and other people roll out the dough and cut it into strips. Some restaurants’ serve dumplings as a side but I can not understand that because when I eat dumplings there is always chicken and gravy. I have seen a bunch of recipes where people use celery, carrots, parsley, and onion. I do not see the use in all of the extra ingredients when just the few are perfect.

One day, a couple of years ago, my mom and I got the bright idea to make chicken and dumplings, I mean how hard could it be right? Wrong, we are definitely the worst cooks ever. For starters we boiled the wrong chicken, and then we added too much butter. By the time we got to the dumplings it was already a mess, but we had no clue at this time. So we added all the dumplings we had made and put the lid on. When we came back a few minutes later, they looked good. My favorite part of chicken and dumplings is definitely the dumpling, so we decided to add more butter and dumplings. They looked great but as we sat down to eat we realized that somehow we had burnt them. How do you burn chicken and dumplings? I really have no clue, but we did it. You couldn’t tell by looking at them but you could definitely smell them. We just thought the smell was something that spilt on the eye of the stove, we were obviously wrong. Till today we still have not attempted to make them.

My daddy is the only person that cooks them the way I like. He even cooked them for me the first weekend that I came home from school. I have tried many different recipes and even restaurants but no one compares to my dad, he is an awesome cook. He starts out by boiling skinless chicken legs in a stock pot with water and chicken broth. Then he adds the seasonings and leaves them to boil. As they are boiling he makes the dumplings with milk and Bisquick. After the chicken is done boiling he takes it out of the pot and puts it onto a plate, to cool off. He adds butter to the boiling water and then he drops the dumplings into the stock pot one after the other. Lastly he takes the chicken off of the bone adds it to the dumplings and lets it simmer. About twenty minutes later as I take the first bit of this long awaited moment all I can think about is how tasty they are and how I never want to stop eating. About ten minutes later I am stuffed and in hog heaven.

This is a food that no matter where I am at in the house when my daddy cooks it can smell it before he is close to being done. No matter how much time passes by or where I am I will never forget my daddy’s chicken and dumplings. Anytime I see chicken and dumplings or just dumplings it reminds me of him. When I eat them at someone else’s house or at a restaurant I always compare them to my daddy and they never compare, not even close. One day my dad and I hope to open a restaurant together and the featured item will be…Chicken and Dumplings. Well maybe only one day a week. The memory that comes to mind when I see chicken and dumplings is how much my daddy loves me. If I ever ask or even if he just wants to surprise me he always makes them because he knows they are my favorite.