Nana’s Chicken and Dumplings

1. Place 5 cups of cold water in a large pot. Gently place the chicken half in the water, skin side up. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil for 40 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot with tongs and place on a baking sheet to cool.
2. Add 1 cup milk to the broth and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat.
3. While the liquid is heating, mix together the dumplings. In a medium sized bowl add the shortening to the flour. Using your hands, gently crumble the shortening into the flour until you reach the size of peas. Slowly stream in the remaining 1 cup milk while stirring with your hand. The mixture should be sticky but not runny.
4. Once the broth liquid comes to a simmer, add tablespoon size balls of dumpling batter into the pot. DO NOT STIR! Leave the dumplings to gently cook in the liquid for 10 minutes.
5. While the dumplings cook, remove the skin from the cooled chicken and begin to shred the chicken from the bones. Place the shredded chicken into a bowl until the dumplings are finished.
6. Right before serving, gently stir the pot of dumplings. At this point, you have to be very careful or your dumplings will fall apart.
7. To serve, place some of the dumplings in a bowl and top with shredded chicken. If you want to serve family style, as my Nana did, simply stir the chicken into the large pot and let everyone get their own.

Note: I like to serve mine with extra black pepper. You will need to adjust salt and pepper to your taste as my family is not a fan of a lot of salt.