This month, AFL is focusing on recipes inspired by family. Before you ask, Diddy the rock star is of no relation...but my sister Diddy is. Some of her colleagues gave her a trinket as a token of appreciation which happened to be a cute leather wrist band with "T Diddy" in stones on it. It was soooo appropriate to nick-name her that and it stuck. She is now forever, Diddy. My sister is a fabulous cook; but, tries to keep that little fact a secret. Once, when visiting her at her home in Atlanta, GA, I was welcomed with a pot of steaming hot chicken and dumplings....something that was never served when I was growing up. Now, I request she make it for me every time we get together. On my last visit, I could not stop talking about the rich stew to my mom. I learned that she had enjoyed chicken and dumplings as a child and ate it often at my grandmother's kitchen table. "Have your sister make me some next time she comes up," she requested. Why wait I thought...I am, after all, the one pot queen...I can figure this out.
Diddy's stew is slow cooked over several hours using dark and light meat and a scratch broth. I can barely sit through a movie, so there is no way I could sit through a long slow cooking process. For Diddy's stew, she takes only one short cut: using store bought biscuit dough to make the dumplings. So here's how I did it:
Cardamom Spiced Chicken Stew with Black Pepper-Herb Dumplings
1 cup pre-cooked roasted chicken breast (roasted on the bone)
1 cup rough chopped sweet onions
1/2 cup rough chopped celery
1/2 cup rough chopped carrots
1 tbsp flour
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup chopped fresh collard greens (about one leaf)
1 tsp cardamom
3 tsp coarse pepper (black, green, and white)
1 small can biscuit Dough
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 box organic low sodium chicken broth
1 cup filtered water
In large pot on medium heat, cook onion, celery, and carrot until softened. Add flour. Stir until it cooks out. Add box of broth and water along with the pepper and cardamom. Stir frequently until flour is fully incorporated. Simmer for 10 minutes and then add chicken. Meanwhile, using about three of the biscuits (freeze the rest), flatten the biscuits using a rolling pin. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of the pepper over the dough and the parsley and roll the dough a bit more. Fold the dough over (the three biscuits will merge into on) and roll again. Do this three more times until the dough is in a smooth square. Cut into strips and then small squares and you have black pepper herb dumplings. Add corn and greens to the pot and simmer for 10 more minutes and then add the dumplings. They will float at they cook and puff up a bit. Allow the stew to cook for about 30 more minutes and turn off the heat. Cover and let sit for about 15 minutes and serve simply in a large bowl with crusty bread.
