Chicken Fricassee Special

A classic French dish, chicken fricassee is a kind of stew where the chicken is simmered and slowly cooked in white wine and cream. In this recipe, the chicken pieces are browned in butter and cooked in cream and white wine, and enhanced with onions, garlic, mushrooms, thyme, laurel leaf, salt and pepper. This recipe by Chef Georges Blanc is served at his gastronomic restaurant and made with the famous Bresse chicken or Poulet de Bresse.

Poulet de Bresse is a special breed of chicken from the Rhone-Alps in France and is considered to be one of the best quality chickens in the world. It is highly prized for its tender meat, clean and delicious fat, and distinctive depth of flavor. It has a very high demand in France and thus it is rarely found outside of the country. In France, they take food labels very seriously and for chicken, they have five levels of categorization, according to the method of production. The five categories include standard boiler, certified, label rouge, organic, and Bresse. Of the five, the Bresse chicken is considered to be the most superior in quality. It is grown free-range, and fed exclusively with milk and grain, producing very tender and flavorful meat.

Of course, you can still make this dish using free-range organic chicken raised in your local farm, which is a better quality than commercially raised chickens. When cooking chicken fricassee, use a large and heavy-bottomed pot for even heat distribution and to prevent the cream from burning. The whole chicken is chopped into pieces before they are added to the pot. They are browned in butter to seal in their juices before the liquid is added to simmer the chicken and cook them through. You can also add the chicken liver in the dish near the end of the cooking if you want a subtly bitter bite or you can leave them out and use for another recipe. Check out some new recipes at Gourmandia.ca

Ingredients

1 chicken (about 4.4 lbs.)
14 ½ tablespoons butter
2 cup double cream (40-45% fat content)
12 baby onions (cut into 4 – 5 chunks each)
3 garlic cloves, mushrooms
1 1/4 cups white wine, thyme
1 laurel leaf
pepper, salt

1. Cut chicken into eight pieces. Place pieces in a pot with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Add chopped onions, four or five garlic cloves, and some mushrooms. Add bay leaf and thyme. Cook until it turns a golden brown color, then sprinkle with white wine. Add cream. Cover and leave to cook for forty minutes.

2. Take the chicken out and place in a saucepan. Add some water to the cream. Strain the liquid to take out the herb garnishing and then pour into the chicken and heat for a little bit more. Season according to taste. Arrange on a dish and serve.