Chicken and Biscuits

Oh my. I've been wanting to make this recipe, one of my mother's tried-and-try ones. It's warm comfort food. I made it in a very large, 14" cast iron skillet.

I already had cooked chicken from the previous night -- chicken parts cooked in a wine gravy with cream, rosemary, onion, garlic, and baked until very tender. We took the leftover chicken off the bone and cut it in small chunks. But you could start with raw chicken breasts (or whatever), boiled in water.

For the gravy above, I put 1/2 stick of butter in the skillet, plus some of the congealed gelatin off the chicken, and melted that. I added about 1/4 cup of flour and stirred to combine. Then I poured in (gradually) a couple of cups of hot water that I'd set to boil in the kettle. Keep stirring gently with a whisk until smooth. I added finely diced celery and carrots, and 2 cubes of chicken bouillon. If you started with raw chicken breasts, you would just use the water you'd boiled it in, as your hot water/broth.

Let all this stir and bubble away until it's nicely thickened, and add all that chicken. I had quite a bit -- probably 2 1/2 cups of cut up chicken at least. The gravy/stew needs to be piping hot because it will cook the biscuits on their bottoms.  You can also add diced onions to this gravy, or peas.

Make a batch of biscuits. I made mine from scratch with about 2 1/4 cups of flour, plus the needed amount of coconut oil, 1 tbsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 cup milk. The biscuits should cover the entire top. Bake at 400º until biscuits are done and golden brown. I turned on the broiler at the end, to finish them off.  This fed the five of us fine, with some leftovers for lunch today.

I hadn't made this meal in about 15 years. That's way too long! Enjoy!