We all have times when we long for home cooking, stressful days that wear us down.  This is fairly quick to make and incredibly soothing. It is gluten free,  of course and reminds me of my old recipe for chicken fricassee with herbed dumplings. Creamy,  flavorful and totally satisfying. My IP makes it so easy to put together in less than an hour.   This recipe made 5 meals out of four chicken thighs so it is an inexpensive dish to serve.                 

Chicken with Dumplings

4 medium chicken thighs

2 Tbsp. butter

Kosher salt

¼ cup gluten free flour; I used King Arthur basic blend

2 celery stalks chopped

2 carrots in coins

1 onion chopped

2 cups gf chicken broth

¼ cup whole milk

1 Tbsp. cornstarch

Dumplings

1 ¾ cup brown rice flour mix

1 tsp. xanthan gum

1 Tbsp. sugar

3 tsp. baking powder

1/3 cup canola oil

2 eggs lightly beaten

¾-1 cup 2 percent milk

For herbal version; add 1 Tbsp. poppy seeds, 1 tsp. celery seeds, 1-2 tsp. dried parsley to dry ingredients.

Directions

Heat Instant Pot on sauté mode, high. Place flour, ½ tsp. salt and ¼ tsp fresh ground pepper on some wax paper, blend up and roll the chicken in it to coat evenly, shake off excess. Add butter to IP, melt it and then add chicken thighs. Sauté for 4 minutes, flip and cook 3-4 more minutes. Remove from pot, set aside. Add the celery, onions, and carrots to the pot, cook for 3 minutes. Add back the chicken and the broth. And more salt if desired. Secure lid Cook on manual pressure for 12 minutes.  Let release naturally for 5 minutes. Remove chicken from pot.  Pull/cut apart into bite sized pieces, removing the bones, discard all skin and any odd bits like cartilage.

While the chicken is cooking prepare the dumplings.  Mix the dry ingredients, in a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients. After the chicken is shredded, pour the wet into the dry ingredients, hold back a bit as you stir it together, do not over mix. Add the rest of the milk if it looks dry; it should be fairly thick/goopy and the xanthan gum will thicken it even more as it stands.  After the release add the ¼ cup milk to the broth and veggies, stir well. In a small bowl mix the cornstarch with ¼ cup hot broth. Add back to the pot and stir. Put pot on sauté, add back the cut up chicken. Use a big spoon to glop in heaping spoonfuls of the dumpling mix all over the top of the broth. Spread them out evenly. Put on cover loosely, I used my glass slow cooker lid so I could watch them steam.  Cook 18-27 minutes; until they double in size, rise to the surface and the tops are not wet or under cooked looking. Serve in shallow wide soup bowls.  Should serve 5 unless you are piggies; then serves four!

Notes; I combined two recipes; one from “The Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook” by Laurel Randolph and one from Carrie S. Forbes “Everything Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Cookbook”.  I used my usual  brown rice mix; King Arthur’s basic blend.  I had trouble getting my IP to sauté on low so I toggled back and forth from slow cooker to sauté to keep things bubbling but not boiling.  Hopefully next time I will get the low setting to work.  There will definitely be a next time.  This was a satisfying old-fashioned entree that I loved every bite of.  Try it with the herbs, they really add a lot of flavor. Enjoy!

PS: if you want to cook this in a slow cooker; do the chicken for 6-8 hours on low and  thirty minutes before serving add the dumplings, do not open lid until the 30 minutes is done.