We played around with some pressure cooked "one pot" dumplings today. The idea being you throw everything in a pressure cooker and boom you have dumpling soup.
We started with our buttermilk biscuit as the starting point for the dumpling. For version one the only changes that were made was to omit the baking powder and the addition of thyme. We ommitted the baking powder because we wanted a denser dumpling.
The process for these trials was:
Cut flour into dry ingredients
Add wet ingredients
Mix until the dough comes together(using paddle attachment)
Chill
Form dumplings (we used a quenelle). In some of the later trials we did several different shapes. Extruding works well for nice small ones.
Pressure cook 20 minutes.
V.1
pastry flour 465
buttermilk 400
butter 170
salt 4
pepper .1
thyme 4
Crowd favorite for "traditional style"
This dumpling was a good start. It was a nice soft chewy texture. Unfortunately is was really under seasoned and we were hoping we could get more chew from it.
V.2 For version 2 we only made a couple changes, we used bread flour in place of pastry flour, sage in place of thyme and doubled the salt
bread flour 465
buttermilk 400
butter 170
salt 8
pepper .1
sage 4
V.2 wasn't much different texturally than V.1 Flavor was better. Nick and I are not liking the buttermilk. We need to get rid of the buttermilk.
v3 For V.3 we went back to pastry flour. We also upped the black pepper. Instead of buttermilk, we used chicken stock. After mixing the batter, it seemed a little too wet so we upped the flour until we visually achieved the texture we were looking for.
pastry flour 545
chicken stock 400
butter 170
salt 8
pepper .5
sage 4
Flavor and texture really "improved" in this version. The dumpling was much more savory and was beginning to take on almost a noodle like texture. It still had a slight in cohesiveness(likely do to the fat). We did several different sizes of dumplings and found we prefer 15-20 g These are big enough to have a nice eating experience but not so big they are hard to eat. Some of the bigger dumplings get a little "dry" in the middle.
v4 For V.4 we cut the butter in half.
pastry flour 545
chicken stock 400
butter 85
salt 8
pepper .5
sage 4
This was Nick and I's favorite. It had nice cohesive chew that really resembles nice hand shaven noodles. Although they are a little softer and gooeyer.
V.5
Pastry flour 545
chicken stock 400
butter 85
salt 8
pepper .5
sage 4
sodium bi-carb 2
The baking soda seems to make the texture softer(less dense feeling). It also adds a flavor that is more biscuity. I think a lot of people will find this nice, but it isn't what I was looking for. I liked the chewyness of V.4.
For the soup we used
Chicken stock 1300g
Salt 15g
MSG 1g
Chicken leg(split) 3 ea 665g
Sweet Onion 250g
Carrot 100g
Celery 80g
Corn Starch 20g
Dumplings 450g
Garlic 25g
Using 50g of the chicken stock, make a slurry with the corn starch. Add everything except the dumplings to the pot and begin heating and whisk in slurry. Add dumplings and cover pressure cooker. Cook for 20 minutes on high pressure. Once done cooking place briefly in ice bath to relieve pressure and serve.
A finished chicken and dumplings dish.
Final dumplings(V.4)
Getting ready to cook everything.
Dumpling trials V.1 after pressure cooking.
Raw dumplings before being cooked.
#dishdevelopment
