Today we’re trying something new. Our first guest post! The post that follows was written by Alex, you can read about his adventures over at Spoken Contract. The week before last, I was sick for four days in a row. Al was sweet enough to make me the following treat to help me feel better. Now we’re sharing it with you! If you can figure out his (intentionally) vague recipe, I suggest you make it for a loved one next time they’re sick. Thank you, Alex!
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Have you seen that show on the Travel Channel? The one with Anthony Bourdain? Well, on each episode he travels to different countries and regions to learn how different people live, and specifically, how they cook and eat. After each episode I wonder to myself what region or family food I would prepare if his producers called me. I live in New England, but don’t have a killer recipe for clam chowder and have never actually cooked a lobster for myself. So there go the fallback regional specialties, but what about my family’s traditional foods? My parents both come from families who have been in the US for more generations than I can count, and our roots have become pretty mixed and lost along the way. Growing up, my parents made my brother and me cookbooks of our favorite foods, usually accompanied by cute stories about the scrambled eggs recipe, or explaining that my mom’s layered salad was the only way I liked eating peas. After combing back through the entries in my homemade cookbook, there aren’t any regional specialties for where I grew up. What I did find was my great great grandmother’s chicken stew recipe. Granted this isn’t local to where I grew up, but it is local to where my mom’s family roots are, and that’s worth sharing, isn’t it?
When someone in my family refers to “chicken stew” it doesn’t mean just any thick soup made with chicken stock. There are no carrots, no potatoes, no herbs, and no spices… just chicken stew, you know? What we call chicken stew, is what some people call chicken pastry, or even chicken dumplings. The recipe I use was written by my great great grandmother Lizzie Barnes who was born and raised in Lucama, North Carolina. It calls for “a hen” and includes the directions to make the pastry strips, which, these days, are readily available in North Carolina supermarkets. So give it a whack if you want, but you might have trouble with the measurements:
Lizzie Barnes’ Chicken Stew
boil a whole hen in a large dutch oven
while chicken is cooking, combine water, flour, and eggs to create a simple pastry dough
roll out and cut into strips, set aside
once chicken is tender and cooked through, remove from broth
add pastry strips to boiling stock
de-bone the chicken and return to stew
devour
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This is a blog post and following comment thread I found, hoping to help you. It was unsuccessful, but you see how big of a deal this is in North Carolina! Note the comments revolving around Wilson County… that’s where Lucama is. Good luck!
