Welcome to the free issue of Between the Layers: A conversation about life through the lens of cooking and baking. For more great content and recipes, consider becoming a paid subscriber! Trading Places: Her Mom’s Chicken and Dumplings & My Mom’s Fried ChickenJust in time for Mother’s Day, Leah Koenig of The Jewish Table and I swap favorite chicken recipes from our mothers
Today you receive a double dose of Mother’s Day as I welcome Leah Koenig of The Jewish Table to tell us about her mother’s Chicken and Dumplings. I share my mother’s fried chicken story with Leah’s readers on her newsletter. Leah and I met through Substack’s Food Intensive Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn with her family and is the author of six cookbooks, including The Jewish Cookbook and Modern Jewish Cooking. Her next book explores Rome’s historic Jewish cuisine, and she’s promised me there will be fried artichoke recipes!
By Leah Koenig AFTER NEARLY TWO DECADES TRAVERSING New York City’s cramped but exhilarating streets, I consider myself a bonafide city girl. But while I thrive amongst the city’s hustle and bustle, I keep a few ties to the slower, suburban-Midwestern lifestyle I grew up with—including a near-constant craving for rich, soul-satisfying casseroles. And the star of them all is my mother Carol’s chicken and dumplings. The dish itself is comfort food par excellence—a jumble of tender, flavorful chicken enrobed with silky gravy and topped with nuggets of pillowy biscuit dough. But beyond the flavor, eating chicken and dumplings brings me right back to childhood in suburban Chicago. Chicken and dumplings was one of our family’s regularly requested dishes, served for cozy birthday dinners at home, or on early autumn nights sitting around the table in our screened-in back porch.
Most of my beloved food and family memories are centered around Jewish holiday celebrations.There was the round, raisin-studded challah and tender brisket my mom served for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). There were crispy fried potato latkes for Hanukkah, which I snuck, still-sputtering with hot oil, straight from the frying pan, and her apple cake, which came chock-a-block with tender pieces of fruit. There is nothing overtly “Jewish” about chicken and dumplings— and yet it always felt deeply familiar. To make it, you simmer chicken with onion, carrots, and celery into a flavorful stock that very closely mimics Jewish chicken soup. Meanwhile the dumplings, which are fluffy-yet-substantial with a beguilingly chewy texture, are nothing if not spiritual cousins to the matzo balls I grew up eating on Passover. No wonder I was smitten at first bite!
Sometime in my mid-20s, I asked my mom to teach me how to make the chicken and dumplings I loved so much.Growing up, she and I had never really cooked much together. She liked her kitchen calm and clean, with everything returned to its proper place. (Now that it is my turn to get dinner on the table every night for my own family, I totally get it!) And I was too preoccupied with ballet lessons, friend drama, and homework to devote any headspace to the kitchen. But there is no question that my appreciation for good-quality ingredients and elegant, well-made meals comes directly from my mother. She was the kind of mom who, in the age of watery iceberg lettuce from the supermarket, regularly shopped at the farmer’s market. She was the kind of mom who stocked the pantry with real maple syrup rather than artificial pancake syrup - not out of snobbishness, but because she thought it tasted better.
Certainly it wasn’t a dish that she had learned from her grandmother Lillian, an Eastern European Jewish-immigrant, or her first-generation mother, Bess. I figured it was something she had picked up at a friend’s home during her childhood in Hammond, Indiana. Or maybe it was something she had clipped from a magazine as a young woman living on her own in Chicago. Nope! As it turns out, she found the recipe in a circa 1973 cookbook put together by employees at the Metropolitan Museum of Art…in New York City! “I ordered the book through the mail,” she told me. “Many of the recipes were weird, but this stood out. It’s the only recipe I ever made from the book.” No matter where she first found the recipe, my mom’s chicken and dumplings would hold a special place in my heart. But knowing that my favorite “Midwestern comfort food” dish actually hails from The Big Apple? That is pure gravy. What is your favorite chicken recipe from your mother?
Thank you, Leah!For sharing your recipe and story and for donating a copy of The Jewish Cookbook as our May cookbook giveaway for subscribers! Leah’s writing and recipes can be found in the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Food & Wine, Epicurious, Food52, and Tablet. You can follow Leah on Instagram and Twitter or her website. And click the button below to learn more about her newsletter and how to subscribe: THE RECIPE: Chicken and DumplingsThis recipe was taught to me by my mom, Carol Koenig, who adapted it from A Culinary Collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. These days, my family keeps a kosher kitchen, so I included a couple of ingredient substitutions that I make in the recipe below to avoid mixing meat and dairy. However you choose to make it (with dairy or without), plan to lick the plate clean! Serves 4 to 6 For the Chicken Stock: 1 4-pound (1.8 kg) chicken, cut into eight pieces 1 large onion, halved (peel on is fine) 3 celery stalks, trimmed and halved 2 large carrots, peeled and halved 1 large handful parsley (stems okay) 2 bay leaves Optional: 4 garlic cloves (smashed and peeled), 1 parsnip, peeled For the Gravy: 3 cups (710 ml) of the Chicken Stock 6 tablespoons of butter or vegan butter (I use Earth Balance) 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper For the Dumplings: 1 1/2 cups (210 g) all-purpose flour 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt 2 tablespoons cold butter or vegan butter, cut into small pieces 3/4 cup milk (or plant-based milk like almond) Chopped fresh parsley and freshly ground black pepper, for serving
Wait Just a Minute!! Before you put your chicken on to simmer for chicken and dumplings, a few reminders:
Have a great week! Anne
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