This one comes from the family recipe box — the real one, from the Pleasantville farmhouse, in handwriting that slants the way handwriting did in 1967. A whole bird simmered slow, and dumplings dropped from a spoon the way Grandma Jones made them for three generations of the family that founded this company. It is not fast food. It is Sunday food, and it is worth every minute.
What you need
- 1 whole Jones Foods chicken, 4 to 5 pounds
- 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
- 2 carrots, roughly chopped
- 1 yellow onion, quartered
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and black pepper
- For the dumplings: 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons cold butter, ¾ cup milk
Method
- Put the bird in your biggest pot with the celery, carrots, onion, and bay leaf. Cover with water by an inch, salt it like you mean it, and bring it just to a boil — then drop it to the barest simmer. Skim what rises. Give it 90 minutes, until the meat wants to leave the bone.
- Lift the bird out and let it cool enough to handle. Strain the broth, return it to the pot, and taste for salt — this broth is the whole dish, so get it right. Pull the meat in big, honest pieces and set it aside.
- Make the dumplings: whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt; cut in the cold butter fast, with your fingers or two knives, until it looks like coarse crumbs; then stir in the milk until the dough barely holds together. Overworked dough makes tough dumplings — mix until it just comes together and stop.
- Bring the broth to a steady simmer and drop the dough in by the spoonful. Lid on. No peeking for fifteen minutes. The dumplings steam as much as they simmer, and every peek lets the steam go.
- Return the chicken to the pot, let everything get acquainted for five minutes, and grind black pepper over the top like you're angry at it. Serve in wide bowls.
From the recipe box
The original card says only: "bird, pot, patience." The card still hangs, framed, in the Pleasantville office — a reminder that this company started with one farm, one kitchen, and one family feeding another. It fed three generations of the Jones family, and it'll feed yours. Some Sundays, the old ways are the best ways.