7-Vegetable Chicken Stew with Dumplings

Submitted by Lennie

"A delicious meal on a cold evening. You can also use skinless boneless chicken thighs if you prefer dark meat. I sometimes add mushrooms too, making it an 8-veg stew!"

 

• Ready In: 1hr
• Ingredients: 19
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, each breast cut in 2 or 3 pieces
• 4 small potatoes, preferably red ones,cut into quarters
• 2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 2 onions, peeled and quartered
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 1 1⁄2 cups cubed, peeled rutabagas
• 1 1⁄2 cups cubed, peeled sweet potatoes
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1⁄2 teaspoon dried sage
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup frozen peas

• Dumplings

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons butter or 2 tablespoons margarine
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 cup milk, preferably lowfat milk

directions

1. In a large pot, combine chicken, all veg except peas, stock and spices; bring to a boil over high heat.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes; stir in peas.
3. Meanwhile, in a food processor or by hand, make dumplings: combine flour, parsley, butter, baking powder and salt until mixture is in coarse crumbs; stir in milk, then drop by tablespoonfuls onto the hot stew; you should have about 6 mounds.
4. Cover pot and simmer-- don't boil hard and DON'T lift the lid-- for 15 minutes or until dumplings have risen.
5. Note: to reduce sodium content in this recipe, replace stock with water.

Reviews

[June Lerch]

Hello Everyone, I tried this recipe today. I am eating the whole thing by myself [ joke]. This is a real "brings back the memories" dish. It has just the right amount of the different vegetables so that one does not overpower the other, and the seasoning is great but I added about 1 tsp. of tarragon to the spice list and it added just enough sweetness to the dish that I prefer. You won't be sorry if you make this dish. It is 'Gourmet' enough for Sunday Company..even on the very first try ! grammajune

 

[Darlene10]

An excellent stew which I just loved and will certainly make again. I added 1 1/2 cups of chopped mushrooms and 1 tsp. of tarragon. The fresh parsley did not look very good at the store today so I didn't buy any. I used 2 tsp. of dried parsley and 3 tsps. baking powder in the dumplings (they turned out light and fluffy). This was very easy to make, smelled good cooking and very filling. Great for a cold night in Canada.

 

[SandyinSeattle]

This looks like an interesting recipe but I would make one tiny suggestion or change. One of the earlier posters mentioned that her husband found the dumplings to be doughy. It looks like there is about half the amount of baking powder that would be needed to make them rise correctly, so maybe that's why. Typically when I make dumplings I use 2 to 2 1/2 tbsp of baking powder (Clabber Girl--you might not need as much with other brands...) for every 2 cups of flour. They rise up like a charm and are light and fluffy (if I do say so myself...). Of course, I do live at sea level...if you live at elevation you would need less so maybe that's why the recipe is written the way it is.

 

[Mysterygirl]

For some reason when I went grocery shopping I thought that I needed turnips & parsnips for this dish. Since I had them I anyway, I just ended up with a 9 vegetable stew. It was excellent. Peoplle ate veggies that they never knew existed and loved them. Thanks for posting this one.

 

[BarbaraK]

I tried this recipe because I have never had rutabagas and it also sounded interesting. I cooked this in a crock pot. Next time, I think I will boil the chicken breast first and skim off the "scum". I cleaned the vegetables the day before and put them all in a bag. One thing about the rutabaga, either I am wonder women, or nuking it on medium for 5 minutes and peeling while warm works. Anyhow, I followed the receipe as directed but I put everything in the crockpot before work so it cooked for about 10 hours. The chicken was very tender. I transferred the stew to a dutch oven in order to make the dumplings, which I thought, was the absolute best part of the stew. Oh, they were good! All the vegetables were cooked but not overcooked. The chicken was tender and not dry. I'm glad I tried it. As for rutabagas? I don't think I'll rush out and buy them again, but it was nice to taste them.