50gsmoked bacon lardons or pancettause more if you want, it's what I had left
1tablespoonextra virgin olive oil or oil of your choice
500gboneless chicken thigh filletsleft whole
150mlchicken stock
2teaspoonsmoked paprika
1teaspoonnormal paprika
4large closed cup mushroomssliced or in wedges. Feel free to use more of course
250gchantenay carrotswashed and left whole or normal carrots cut in big chunks
100gCavolo Nerowashed and leaves snapped into fours or use a knife if you’re feeling fancy
4garlic clovesleft whole but whacked with the back of your hand
Salt and pepper
Dumpling Ingredients
200gself-raising floura reader has tried the dumplings successfully with Doves Farm gluten-free self-raising flour
1teaspoonbaking powder, heapedgluten free if making the dumplings GF
40ggrated cheddar cheese
1tablespoonMixed herbs or herbs of your choice
Salt and pepperas much as you think you'll need, I don't add much as I add cheese
2teaspoonolive oil
140mlwaterfrom the cold tap
Instructions
Start by preparing the dumpling mix: Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, add the oil and water and keep mixing until you have a soft dough. I use my hands. Put aside for now.
Sauté the bacon lardons in 1 tablespoon olive oil.
Add chicken, stock and the two paprikas and mix well to coat the chicken. Add salt (about half a teaspoon, I don't tend to use much salt) and a few twists of the black pepper mill.
Add the mushrooms, carrots, cavolo nero and garlic and stir. Roll the dumpling mix into 8 balls and place them directly on top of the other ingredients.
Lock the lid in. Steam release set to Sealing. Pressure cook at high pressure for 5 minutes.
When it has finished pressure cooking, let it do a Natural Pressure Release* for 15 minutes and then vent the rest of the steam trapped inside (if any). Or, of course let it go to Keep Warm until you're ready to eat, I have and it works fine.
If you want to brown the dumplings, you can put the inner pot under a hot grill for a few minutes (the stainless inner pot goes in the oven) or decant into a different dish and brown there. But I don't bother personally
Notes
As with all of my recipes, make sure your Instant Pot is well loved because I like to push the limits of how much liquid to add. For that, follow the Give your Instant Pot some Love document in the Instant Pot UK Beginners' Guide which you can download from here.*TerminologyQuick Pressure Release (QPR) means venting the steam as soon as the pressure cooking process finishes. You do this by turning the steam release handle from Sealing to Venting and waiting for the float valve to pop back down. QPR is handy for delicate foods such as vegetables or fish that you don't want to overcook. Never QPR porridge!Natural Pressure Release (NPR) means letting the float valve pop back down of its own accord (naturally, no pun intended). So basically with NPR you don’t need to do anything at the end and can keep your feet up. If the NPR takes over 15 minutes and you are keen to eat, you can release the rest of the steam, if any, by performing a QPR (see above). Bear in mind that the food keeps cooking during the NPR. NPR is useful for meat as a QPR can toughen meat. NPR is also essential for soup.As you can see in this recipe sometimes I talk about doing an NPR followed by a QPR.