welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen tonight for supper i'm going to
make a one pan
chicken dish and the bones of this
recipe is a mixture of two recipes that
we did on the old cookbook show one from
the 1930s i think was the 1930s um
called smothered chicken and one was
from 1800 and it was a chicken fricassee
and both of those recipes were
essentially chicken fricasee um even
though it was called smothered chicken
it was a chicken fricasee
this is also a chicken frequency
and i'm gonna take the bits and pieces
from those two other recipes combine
them the best parts that i thought were
the best parts and add some new stuff so
it's a full meal in that pan
and it looks like there's a lot going on
on the countertop and there is but it is
very simple so i'm going to start out by
making an herb mix
um that would generally be called herb
de provence so into the mortar and
pestle i am going to
put
fennel
okay so to be fair there's one two three
four five six seven eight there's eight
different herbs that i have to put in
here so i'm gonna have to read them off
as i put them in and it may not be the
exact ones as i put them in so i just
put in the fennel i need to put in
rosemary
needs thyme
marjoram
tarragon
uh
basil dried basil
dried savory
and dried chevrel
uh
that is pretty much
herb de provence
so if you want to buy a shaker of
already made up herb de provence at your
grocery store
go right ahead have it on hand
there is
one of the regular ingredients though is
lavender
and i don't really like lavender to cook
with
so
i make my own i mix up my own as i need
it
just to uh just to make sure that i like
to eat it everything else that's in the
mixture i really like
not the lavender
okay now that that's all mixed up we're
gonna deal with the chicken so i have
here's eight chicken thighs
and i have an egg yolk and so
i'm going to break the egg yolk
and massage it into the chicken or over
the chicken
and just get it on every piece of
chicken everywhere that you can
with eight pieces you might need two
yolks but i think one is gonna make it
okay now
i'm going to
season the chicken before we fry it
obviously
a little bit of salt
not a whole lot i can i can adjust the
salt later but you have to start it with
a little bit i'm using white pepper and
for no other reason
then i had this little thing of white
pepper on the counter from another
recipe that i'm working on
and
i might as well just use it up today in
this recipe
if you've got black pepper go ahead and
use black pepper you don't have to use
white pepper
now a little bit of the herb de provence
and of course i will do both sides of
the chicken i will turn it over before i
go to the pan
and cover both sides
now turn this pan up to sort of medium
high heat
and i'll put in a little bit of oil
get that heated up
that's looking good and hot now we're
going to brown the chicken both sides
uh
we don't have to cook it all the way
through just like any operation like
this you're just browning the outside to
build some flavor on the chicken and in
the pan
so i'll get this in
and let that do its thing
now later in the recipe i want to
thicken the sauce
so i'm going to use a bermene
you've seen me make this before it is
really simple
it is equal parts butter and flour
and they're just mashed together
and you use this in places where a roux
doesn't make sense and in this case a
roux just is not going to make sense
because of
when we need to thicken the sauce
so as the chicken fries
i will just mash this flour into the
butter
there we go it comes together really
quickly so we'll just set that aside and
check the chicken
let's see
i'm gonna say that looks good so i've
got a plate here
and we'll pull the chicken out and set
it aside now there's quite a bit of oil
in the bottom of this pan still there's
it's mixed is the oil that i put in
mixed with whatever chicken fat has
rendered out
during the browning time
you have to look at it and decide if
there's enough or if there's too much
for your liking
if you think there's enough to do the
next operation leave it if you think
there's too much take some out i think
i've got the right amount in here
this is uh four little potatoes that
i've cut up into fairly small chunks
i'm going to put them in i'm going to
splash myself with oil i'm going to put
them into the pan
and i'm going to brown them a little bit
so i'll just mix those up in the pan
i've also got
a
couple of shallots from the bottom of
the fridge from the crisper and these
little pearl onions again from the
bottom of the crisper you don't have to
use shallots or pearl onions if what you
have is a brown or a white onion just
chop it up again you want it to be about
the same size as the potatoes that you
chopped up and put that in as well
and we'll give that a bit of a stir
around
just trying to brown them
soften them up a little bit so they'll
cook at the same rate as the chicken
later
now
i had some mushrooms
that were
again hanging out in the bottom of the
fridge
on their last legs i'm going to throw
them in just to see what happens
now you're just looking to get some
color on the potato and the onion as
well
getting those mushrooms to release most
of their moisture
and at this point there's really no fond
left on the bottom of the pan
the potatoes and the onions have soaked
it all up
so i'm going to pull all of that out of
the pan
i don't know if pulling it out is
actually necessary i think at this point
you could probably build your sauce in
this pan no problem but i'm going to
pull it out anyway because i think
building the next bit would be easier
without all of this stuff in the pan
and watch the temperature of your pan at
this point you don't want it too hot
right away for the next step you don't
want to burn in the bottom of the pan
while you're trying to get the stuff out
so set that aside now i've got some
white wine here it's a chardonnay
chardonnay's not my favorite wine
but it will work well in this dish
and i'm going to put
somewhere between half and three
quarters of a cup in there and we'll let
that
bubble away you want to reduce it by
half like everyone says or even more you
want to concentrate the flavor you also
want to pull up any fondant on the
bottom but there isn't any pretty much
because it's all with the potato and
onion
so we'll get that up
so you're looking for a wine with a bit
of a bright acidic flavor to sort of
elevate all the other notes if you don't
like cooking with wine
don't use it don't use it just don't use
it i'm going to put in a cup and a half
of chicken stock so put in two cups of
chicken stock
and maybe a tablespoon of a nice
flavorful vinegar and don't worry about
the wine so now i've got
a spoonful of dried mustard put that in
are you on team keynes or team coleman
i i just get whatever one ends up in my
basket at the grocery store so i'm going
to whisk that in now i've got the
bermuda
and that's the same sort of thing i'm
just going to put in maybe half of what
i made
whisk that in and get it to thicken a
little bit i don't have to over thicken
it at this point i probably turn that
temperature down
because there is one more thickening
step before we get to the end and i
think the one at the end um
is really nice it's the one i i think
really brings a lot to the to the dish
so whisk that in
okay i think that's looking good now
i've got
a couple of sliced up carrots i'm going
to put those in
put back in the potatoes onions and
mushrooms
and then place the chicken on top
last piece of chicken
and the juice that was on the plate from
the chicken
and
i've got a few sprigs of fresh thyme
here so i'm just going to put them
in the pan as well
a couple places
now i'm going to put the lid on this and
i'm going to cook this on sort of a
medium low heat
until the chicken is cooked through
and i could do this in the oven
depending on the time that i have
between
cooking this and when julie gets home
the oven is probably the best bet you
put it in at 3 25
and you can almost forget about it you
do need to lift the lid every once in a
while and look at it and see if you need
to add more liquid
same as you do on the stove top
i think today i can leave it on the
stove top and just kind of let it go
now the chicken should be cooked so
i've got the oven preheated
i like braised chicken i don't like
braised chicken
skin so i'm gonna i'm gonna take the
chicken out
uh and pop it in the oven so i've got
the oven preheated right now it's 350
but i think i might bump it up you can
even put the broiler on if you um
if you if you watch it carefully be
careful with the broiler pop this in the
oven to crisp up the skin a little bit
and next we'll finish the sauce in the
pan so i need
about a quarter cup of whipping cream or
heavy cream
this final step isn't
necessary isn't completely necessary but
i think it adds just an incredible
incredible silky smooth texture to the
sauce
so i'm going to pull the time out it's
done it's
it's done its thing we don't need it in
there anymore so that comes out
potatoes are cooked through they're nice
and soft so i've got the whipping cream
and to that i'm going to add an egg
and we'll just whisk that egg into the
cream
and i've got a lemon here and i just
want a squeeze of lemon
so probably
not even the juice from half a lemon
now because there's egg in this
i'm just going to get a little bit of
the sauce out of the pan
and put it in the cup just to temper it
and then this goes into the pan
and we just mix that
into the rest of the sauce
get that out
you don't have to put the chicken i'm
sticking behind you here hey friends you
don't have to put the chicken in to
crisp it i just like crispy it's all
crispy though i know i like crispy skin
so i've got all the i don't even have
nothing to do the forks are here i can
turn that off so put a piece of chicken
on here for us to taste
and
oh it's got a like a
sauce yeah it's it's a it's a cream
sauce with
um potato oil onions carrots
that's like hot out of the oven yeah
okay let's cut that open let's see what
we've got here
okay
mm-hmm
it's really good one of those onions
that's really good i like the the
this i don't what did you put on the
chicken i like the oh so i i essentially
made
an herb mix that's herb de provence okay
leaving out the lavender because i don't
really like lavender
[Music]
and it adds it adds a whole lot to it
and the egg and the cream and the sauce
really give it a nice smooth silky
yeah that's really quite lovely i i feel
like i need to now leave this space and
go
put it in a proper plate and eat
something
okay so it seemed like there was a lot
going on there
but it really is pretty simple and don't
feel that you have to follow
the vegetables that i used
substitute other vegetables if you've
got them in your in your fridge
and if you don't have the makings for
the herb the provence
throw in another spice or herb mix that
you really like because it would go with
this it's a pretty yeah it's you know
it's a pretty standard kind of base
recipe yeah
um
so there you have it
i don't know what to call it smothered
chicken deluxe
oh deluxe
chicken fricassee royale
i don't know what to call this anyway
smothered chicken glen smothered chicken
exactly
this is a great meal thanks for stopping
by see you again soon
you