Poulet Fricasee France

I started craving chicken and dumplings a few weeks ago. I'm not sure why. It was a rare dish around the house when I was a kid, so I don't think it was nostalgia. It was more like an odd subconscious fixation on the idea of a soft dumpling floating in a creamy rich chicken sauce.

I don't measure when I cook, and if you write a real "how to" it takes (me) a long time, so I will just throw it out there and if you have any questions I will deal with that then.

I cut up a whole chicken into pieces...it's not that hard and in the end you get ALL the bits to make broth.

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/how-to-cut-up-chicken2.htm

Make a mirepoix, which I make like this: (all diced small) 3 parts onions, 1 part celery and 2 parts carrots fried in olive oil. Crush and roughly chop (meaning kinda big) 1 clove of garlic. When the onions are clear, but before anything is brown add a largish glass of dry white wine (if it's sweet add less). Add a few bay leaves and some (maybe like half a teaspoon) thyme. This is going to make you hungry so start before you're ready to eat. Add some a lot of salt and a little pepper (remembering to leave room to add at the end).

Add the chicken and fill with hot water until you cover the chicken, add about 8 medium carrots, and bring it to a near boil for at least an hour, but not more than an hour and a half.

Take the chicken out, put it in a bowl to cool. Put the carrots to the side. Take the bay leaves (and thyme stems if you used whole thyme) out. While the chicken is cooling you raise the temp on the broth to a boil, and make the dumplings.

2 cups all purpose flour mixed with a tsp of salt, and then slowly incorporate 2/3 cup of cold water, mix by hand until you have a stiff dough. Flour the shit out of the counter or large cutting board and roll out. Here we don't have a roller so I use a bowl bottom.

When it's 1/8 inch thick let rest for 10 min while you pick every piece of meat off the chicken and discard the skin and bones. Make the pieces small and toss them in. Then cut the dough into 3/4 to 1 inch squares and toss them in making sure you don't stir them too rigorously after this.

They need only cook about 3 or 4 minutes.

Thicken sauce with bread crumbs, and once it's a thick sludge add one last badass ingredient...
a few heaping tablespoons of sour cream.

Put the whole carrots on the side. Garnish if you like with chopped parsely. Serves 4 to 6 depending on the size of the chicken and the appetites of the eaters.

C'est tout!