{Recipe} Beef Stew and Dumplings

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

I had never had dumplings until I made this the other day. I always imagined they were either unappetizingly soggy, had a glue-like texture, or completely flavorless (or all three). But my husband raved about them and always suggested I try making them. So for him, I started some bone broth in our Instant Pot and googled how to make dumplings.

I found out that dumplings are essentially biscuits that are boiled/steamed on top of a soup or stew. Knowing my biscuit recipe is the best ever (thank you, Betty Crocker!), I knew it couldn’t turn out too badly.

For the stew, I didn’t follow a recipe, but I did look at a couple recipes online to get an idea of what spices to use and took some suggestions from Kris.

The finished results were amazing. My husband said it was perfect, which is a huge compliment since Kris is an amazing cook and flavor king.

The Stew

I started out by placing some soup bones (some with a little meat on them) in our Instant Pot. (A few months ago, we purchased half a (small) beef and the butcher wrapped up a few packages of bones. I’d also been saving the bones from other times we’d eaten beef and just storing them in the freezer.) I threw in some leftover gravy and added half an onion and covered everything with water. I set it on the “broth” setting and it cooked for about 3 hours (not counting building up to pressure or depressurizing. Altogether, it was about 4 hours.) After everything was cooked down, I strained the broth and picked what meat I could off of the bones. This process isn’t essential as you can just use beef or chicken broth as your stew base. I was just planning on making broth that day anyway.

I peeled and sliced some carrots and potatoes and tossed those into the broth to cook. My husband doesn’t care for thin soup, but prefers thicker stew. So I put about a ⅓ cup of flour into a jar, added some water, and shook that to mix it up. I did the same with a ½ cup milk powder and water and added that to make it creamy. I added about a tablespoon of salt, a teaspoon of black pepper, 2 teaspoons thyme, 2 teaspoons oregano (wanted to use basil, but was out), and a teaspoon of garlic powder (those measurements are all a guess as I just dumped things in. Yes, I’ve learned that from Kris.) I let that cook until thickened.

The Dumplings

I used to my favorite biscuit recipe for this:
(Yields about 7 biscuits)

2 cups flour
1 tbsp. sugar
4 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
½ cup cold butter
¾ cup milk

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees

2) Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Cut in cold butter using pastry cutter until mixture looks like fine crumbs. Stil in milk until dough leaves side of bowl (dough will be soft and sticky).

3) Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead lightly 10 times. Roll or pat ¾ inch thick. Cut using a cup or round cookie cutter. After cutting as many biscuits as possibly, lightly press - don’t knead - the scraps of dough together to make 1 or 2 more biscuits.

4) Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

For the dumplings, instead of rolling out the dough, I simply used a large spoon and scooped 2 tablespoon size balls into the boiling stew. Once all my dough was used, I put a lid on top, turned the heat down to a simmer, and let the dumplings steam for 15 minutes. I then took the stew off the heat and let it cool for a while since it was piping hot.

I am now a dumpling lover and will be making this again and again, especially as we go into fall and winter!