Drop Dumplings

My mother loved Dumplings. She had to have her dumplings on her beef stew, or it wasn’t stew. I don’t eat meat, so I don’t often make dumplings. But my cornmeal variation sure is good on yesterday’s Chowder recipe!

Drop dumplings are kind of like biscuits, dropped by the spoonful into a simmering liquid, the pot covered with a lid, and the dumplings cooked until just done. If they are over-cooked they are tough, and not at all nice. Cooked to perfection, they are airy mounds of dough – definitely not for the gluten-free gang!

Mom used a packaged mix – which I will never do – unless someone gives me a box and my frugal self would rather use it than toss it,  so I went searching in her old recipe books and found this recipe (my cornmeal recipe follows):

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• chopped parsley (you can use pretty much any seasoning you like!)

Sift* flour, measure and re-sift 3 times with baking powder and salt, the 3rd time into the mixing bowl.

Add milk all at once and stir rapidly until well blended. ( Use a wooden spoon. Don’t use an electric mixer!)

Drop by spoonfuls on top of your soup or stew. To prevent sticking, dip the spoon into the hot water each time before dipping in the batter.

As soon as all the dumplings are in (work quickly to produce a better product) cover the stew pot and simmer for about 12 minutes – without uncovering.

You need about 3 cups of liquid in your soup pot so there’s some left after cooking the dumplings, as they do absorb some of the liquid.

*Sifting flour: my home economics teacher was always going on about the importance of sifting flour to create a light, airy bakers product. It actually changes the quantity of flour. 3 measured cups of flour can easily turn into 3 1/2 cups when sifted. That makes a big difference, and if not sifted, the result is a heavier product.

Here’s my Cornmeal variation:

1 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup buttermilk  For a frugal, less fatty buttermilk, add 1 T white vinegar to the measured milk, stir and wait about 5 minutes before adding to flour mixture.