Cornmeal & Sage Dumplings

"Generally," cornmeal dumplings are associated with the southern part of the United States, and there are variations to recipes; in fact, I've had a southern cookbook for about 45 years with a recipe for cornmeal dumplings; but it isn't the recipe I'm presenting here. The book is so old and worn, a couple of years ago I had to apply heavy packing tape to hold it together, something I may soon have to do with myself. Cornmeal dumplings are often served with greens, like collards or kale, but they are also a great accompaniment to roasted chicken; and of course, cornmeal dumplings are also used in soup. 

Ingredients:

2/3 cup yellow cornmeal (you won't turn into an iceberg if you use white cornmeal)
2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons finely chopped onion, sauteed in a little butter, about a teaspoon
2/3 teaspoon ground black pepper 
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup buttermilk (a little more, by the tablespoon, if needed)
3 tablespoons chopped sage 
4 to 5 cups chicken broth for cooking

In a small skillet, saute the onion until it softens. While the onion is cooking, mix together all of the dry ingredients (cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, pepper). Using a fork, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it forms bits of coarse meal. Add the sage, softened onion and buttermilk, then mix as little as possible to just bring everything together into a dough. Heat the chicken broth in a sauce pan and bring to a gentle, but steady, boil. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough into the hot broth. You can cover the pan, but I don't. Cook the dumplings for about 12 to 15 minutes, just checking to make sure the dumplings don't stick.

After removing the dumplings, I strain the broth and use it to make gravy.

Cornmeal dumplings with gravy, roasted chicken and corn...

WORD HISTORY:
Bucket-This word is distantly related to "bulk," a word from Germanic, but the specific form "bulk" was borrowed by English from the North Germanic branch of Germanic. "Bucket" is also closely related to the now UK dialectal word "bouk," which means "belly," and also, "torso." "Bouk" is an original English word from its Germanic roots, and it has relatives in other Germanic languages, including German "Bauch" ("belly," "torso"). It goes back to Indo European "bheu," which meant, "to swell, to puff up/out" (a variant form was "bhel," which also meant, "to swell"). The Indo European form gave Old Germanic "buka," meaning, "main part of the body, the trunk, the torso;" but with that part of the body having the abdomen, it also came to be used for, "belly," and this gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "buc," meaning "belly," but also figuratively, "jug, container," "likely" from the idea of a "waterskin," an animal bladder or stomach used to carry water or other liquids, which "bulged out when filled." This meaning "seems" to have been melded into the closely related Frankish form, "buk," meaning, "belly," and this was absorbed into Old French with the added diminutive suffix "et," as "buquet," but meaning, "container for carrying water or liquids, a pail." This "returned" to England with the Normans with that meaning and it was borrowed into English (and blended with the existing English form), initially as "buket," in the mid 1200s.