Garlic Chicken Stew, the Perfect Comfort Food

It's winter, and it's cold and the snow forecast for New England is looking to mess up my daughter's 7th birthday party. So I needed some comfort food last evening and I thought I'd share it with our loyal readers.

Like a good book that you reread over and over this is a recipe I cook up whenever I can't think of what to make for dinner or when it's cold out and we need something to warm us up. Comfort food at its best.

The amount of garlic, cabbage and onion in this recipe is probably extra good for you during the winter months. So enjoy!

I have fallen in love with my pressure cooker, a Fagor Rapida. I can take a frozen chunk of chicken, in this recipe, 4 thighs, and have chicken stew in under an hour. Falling-off-the-bone yumminess.

Garlic Chicken Stew with Dumplings

Garlic Chicken Stew

6 cups of water

4 chicken thighs (bone-in, with skin, but you can do any cut with or without bone)

2 ribs of celery cut

1 big handful of those mini carrots, or 2 large carrots sliced (large chunks are fine)

1 large sweet onion, white or red, diced

2 tsp dried thyme

1 head of garlic, peeled and sliced (don't chop, just slice)

1/4 head of cabbage chopped (in 1 inch squares)

Salt to taste (I use about 1 Tablespoon of kosher salt)

If you're not using a pressure cooker put everything in the pot and bring to a boil and simmer for an hour and a half then check the chicken to see if it's falling off the bone.

With a pressure cooker, put everything in the pot, bring up to pressure 15psi, and cook for 40 minutes, even if the chicken is frozen. I use the cold water release method where I put  the pot under cold running water until the pressure goes down. I don't like to wait. :)

Depending on how ambitious I am, I'll either take each piece of chicken out and take the meat off and return it to the pot, or serve it in bowls with one thigh in the bottom of each bowl.

I will sometimes add Bisquick Dumplings to the stew (I use half this recipe). This will also thicken the stew even further. YUM.

Ansha Kotyk is the upper middle grade author of GANGSTERLAND, a story about a boy, bully and magical comic book. She is a volunteer for New England SCBWI conferences (registration opened yesterday, come visit!) and is one of the hosts of #mglitchat.