My Great American Road Trip – Delaware

Oh, Delaware, you’re so boring. Maybe Delaware isn’t boring, but you would not know it from the food.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Delaware, but I don’t remember much. There was this one bike trip from DC to NY or NY to DC and I think we went through Delaware. I kind of remember the Delaware Water Gap being really beautiful. Cutie-pie Survivor winner Ethan Zahn was with us on that trip. He was fun. I remember way more about him, then about what we ate.

I think Delaware is meant to be really pretty and mid-Atlantic seaside-y, which is definitely up my alley.  Google tells me that the most iconic food might be Thrasher’s French Fries on Rehoboth Beach, which is for sure stop one when I can finally go to Delaware, but not something I can make at home. Other options were salt-water taffy (yum, but nope), blue crab (saving crab for Maryland), and muskrat – MUSKRAT (NO!). And then there was something called Slippery Dumplings. Done.

Slippery dumplings are most often served with a chicken and it is apparently something that your grandma made for you if you grew up in Delaware.

So, the first thing you do is make a chicken broth, with a stewing chicken, onion, carrots, and celery. Among the advice I’ve gotten from New Englanders now in Florida was this gem from my friend and co-worker Cassidy from Connecticut – don’t make your own chicken, get it from Publix Market – so good. And she is wise.  Side note, I’ve not yet had one, but apparently a Pub Sub is also a rite of passage in the path to becoming a Floridian. I’ll be getting one of those soon.

Anyway, instead of making my own broth, I used a little boxed chicken broth, to which I added onion, carrot, and celery and set aside to simmer, while my Publix chicken was waiting for it’s call time.  For the dumplings you mix 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, a little bit of salt and…..Crisco (3 tablespoons). I remember having Crisco in the house as a kid, but I was a little nervous about buying it. On my nightly call with my friend Lynn she promised me Crisco is what makes pie crust flaky and it would be fine, so into the dough it went. Then you add as much of the broth as you need to make the dough into a dough. Before the broth, it’s just sandy. Roll it out thin and cut into to 2 inch squares. In cooking, as in life, consistency is important. In my cooking, as in my life, I’m crap at consistency.

Bring the broth to a boil and drop the dumplings in one at a time. Don’t over crowd the pot (I did.)

Then you leave them there to simmer until the dumplings are tender and cooked through.  The directions said about 15 minutes, but it was a lot longer for me, possibly because of how many dumplings I tried to cook at once.

When they’re cooked, you serve with a little broth, now all thickened up because of the flour from the dumplings, and a side of chicken. I added parsley, because I have a parsley plant now, so it’s going on everything.

It was the most comforting, delicious meal. And I ate it for dinner, then lunch, then dinner again. It was like a hug from your nana. Your nana, not mine. Sherry reminds me of a hug from my nana.

I think being in Delaware is like being a kid on vacation. You go to the beach for french fries and saltwater taffy and home for chicken soup. It’s pretty perfect.