I’m not sure exactly where this recipe originated. I got it from my mom a long time ago, and I’ve modified it some to simplify it because I’m lazy. This is a great meal for a cold day – hot, full of carbs, and very rich. This uses baking mix (a.k.a. Bisquick) but if you want to make your own biscuit dough that would work perfectly fine. Mark Bittman’s buttermilk biscuit recipe from How to Cook Everything is very good:
Buttermilk Biscuit Dough
- 2 cups flour
- 4 to 5 tablespoons of cold butter (I use a cheese grater to cut it into small bits, which is a brilliant tip I read somewhere)
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 7/8 cup buttermilk
Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Cut in butter until the mixture is evenly mixed (if you use a grater as I recommend, this basically just involves stirring the bits in). Stir in the buttermilk just until incorporated and turn out on a floured surface. Knead a couple times and then use as desired.
Ingredients
- 2 small boneless skinless chicken breasts, or 1 large (I always use frozen)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper (or more to taste)
- 4 Tbsp butter
- 2 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix + 2/3 cup milk
Procedure
Preheat oven to 450 F. Cut the chicken breasts into bite-size pieces and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Make the dough, either by using the baking mix and milk or the recipe above. Divide the dough into 2 equal parts. Roll one part of the dough out to about a 1/4 inch thick, and cut it into strips about an inch wide and three inches long. Put half these strips on the bottom of a 2 quart casserole dish, and then add half the chicken on top of the dough. Add one tablespoon of butter, cut into pieces. Repeat this step with the other half of the dough strips, chicken, and butter.
Divide the remaining dough into two pieces and roll those pieces out to the size of the casserole dish. Cover the chicken with one piece of the dough and seal it to the sides of the dish. cut a hole in the center of the dough and pour in enough water to just float the crust. Bake at 450 F. for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and spread one tablespoon of butter on the crust, then cover with the remaining layer of dough and return to the oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, spread another tablespoon of butter on the crust. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 F and bake for another 30-45 minutes.
This recipe will serve about 4 people. The original recipe was double this size and called for whole, bone-in chicken pieces, which is good, but more difficult to eat, so I have cut the recipe in half (enough for our family) and substituted the boneless skinless breasts.