Tim McGraw's Chicken and Dumplings

Hallelujah! I have converted you to the True Religion of Cornbread!! No sugar, no soft fluffy cake, just that Good Old Fashioned Cornbread.

You mentioned Faith Hill and her Cornbread, so I thought of her husband Tim McGraw. I read an article recently that said he made his grandmother’s Chicken and Dumplings for Faith Hill back in the days when they were dating. It must have been good stuff–she married him!

His hit song, “Live Like You Are Dying,” is a good description of life in general, and his Chicken and Dumplings in particular. You need to savor this homey dish for who knows when you may eat it again.

Despite that Scots-Irish name of McGraw, these dumplings have a German noodle touch to them. I grew up with biscuit dough as dumplings, and I won’t tell you how many times my dumplings turned out to be sodden blobs of dough instead of light, fluffy dumplings. Tim’s are certainly easier.

Tim McGraw’s Grandmother’s Chicken and Dumplings:

1 small chicken
Water
Pinch of salt
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons Crisco butter shortening
½ cup buttermilk
1 egg

Boil the chicken in a large Dutch Oven pot with salted water until the chicken is falling off the bones. Remove chicken from the broth and when cool, tear into small pieces. Return chicken–sans bones–to the broth.

Pour the flour into a bowl, leaving a hole in the middle. Add the egg and enough buttermilk to make a biscuit dough consistency. Sprinkle flour on a cutting board, and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll out fairly thin and cut in to squares. Carefully drop one square at a time into the boiling broth. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until the dumplings are tender. The dumplings will thicken the broth until it is a creamy consistency.