Chicken Fricassee, a Sumptuous French classic recipe

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Indulge in the delicious flavors of chicken fricassee, a sumptuous French classic recipe. Learn how to make this flavorful dish step by step in this video, with ingredients and cooking techniques straight from France. Bon appétit!

Chicken fricassee

Bone in chicken thighs 6
Diced onion 1
Chopped garlic 3 cloves
Sliced mushrooms 250g
Chicken stock 250ml – 1 cup
White wine 300ml – 1 1/4 cups
Creme fraiche 300ml – 1 1/4 cups
Parsley and thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Unsalted butter 1 tbsp
Oil 1 tsp
Plain or all purpose flour 2 tsp

Brown chicken and remove, sweat onion – mushrooms – garlic – thyme. Add flour and stir to a roux, add wine and simmer until the wine reduces to taste good, then add the chicken stock – add chicken and simmer until fully tender.

If the sauce is getting too reduced, cover with a lid, finish with the creme fraiche and lots of fresh parsley.

Hello in this video I’m making a chicken  fricassee, it’s a beautiful French dish   with some chicken thighs and I got chicken  stock so that’s from a previous video of mine   and I thought I’d show you another way to use  up that chicken stock as it’s really lovely. 

Anyway this is a classic French dish it’s  really really gorgeous I won’t go on about it,   we’re going to crack on with it and I  know you’re going to really like this one. 

There you go on the screen is the full recipe feel  free to pause that and write that down but I will   also post it in the description below if you want  to copy and paste it so on with the preparation,  

It’s not very complicated got some fresh parsley  there I’m just roughly slicing up one onion in   the UK we call that a white onion but I believe  in the States you might call it a yellow onion  

And just dicing I’m not being too fussy about  this it will be staying in the dish in the end   but it’s going to be cooking for a while so just  not too big and then just I don’t like to waste  

A bit of the core so I like just to chop round  and round so there’s only that little bit that   goes and by now if you’re making stocks  you can pop that in your stock can’t you  

And if you are making stocks do let me know  in the comments how you getting on with it.  and you know is it elevating your cooking game  and so anyway there’s uh some Chestnut mushrooms   but button mushrooms any type of mushrooms be  fine I’m quartering mine and I’ve just I’m just  

Looking for bits of grit and dirt and removing it  with my hands rather than washing them I I don’t   find it necessary to wash them, so they’re done  on with the thighs so the thigh is my favourite  

Bit of chicken with the skin on and the bone in  that is no alternative it is just the best you   can always cook with the skin on and remove it  later if you don’t want to eat the skin but it  

Does it adds an awful lot of flavour to the dish  a thorough seasoning salt and pepper on the skin   and then flip them over on on the fleshy side  as well and they’re going to go into a hot pan  

So I’ve had behind me a nice heavy base cast iron  pan warming up use a heavy based pan if you can   if it’s it’s got a lid even better if it doesn’t  you can use like a tray or something to cover this  

Later but skin side down and get them all nice  and golden so you can see different parts of the   pan may be hotter than others so I just adjust  them move them around a little bit until they  

Go oh that looks really nice look lovely golden  brown colour yes I’m having that flip those over   give those a couple minutes on that side just  a little bit more colour there so basically the   Browning of meat adds flavour it also makes it  look nice but the flavour is the key thing it  

Changes everything so they’re out now with the  chicken fat and I had a bit of oil and butter   while I use lard there’s now even for me that’s a  bit too much fat so I ped away about half of that  

And now I’m going to sweat these onions but I  didn’t throw the fat away because I intend to   use it later I will show you in a minute or so so  cooking off the mushrooms first I think they take  

A bit longer to do and you see that me scratching  away that gorgeous stuff that’s called the fond   never lose that that is that’s where it’s at so  we can use the the vegetables to kind of deglaze  

The pan so just get all of that off after a couple  of minutes in went the onions and followed shortly   by the garlic I got the heat now down a bit lower  kind of medium low something like that there’s no  

Rush here in with the herbs I’ve got some parsley  going in sorry some time going in now and then a   little bit of the parle but not all of it keeping  some back for the for the Finish of the dish and  

I’m happy now yep that’s all looking good now the  fat doesn’t seem to be very much in there now does   it so I’m going to add a bit more of that fat that  we took away and in with the flour so that is to  

Create what’s known as a rue uh a a traditional  technique for thickening sauces so just stir that   around for a minute or so we haven’t got to go too  long we’re not looking to cook this out because  

It’s going to be cooking for quite a while with  all the other ingredients so the the the raw FL   flour will be cooked out anyway but just get  that incorporated and then with the wine and  

Then we’re going to give that wine just a few  minutes to reduce a little bit to sort of boil   off most of the alcohol and we we’ll taste it as  well so we’re reducing the amount of liquid there  

You can see that so over a few minutes you can see  it thickening now that’s the flour thickening it   as it just simmers there so we got this down now  you’re always adjusting the temperature so it’s  

A simmer and if it ever feels like it’s catching  on the bottom turn it down and just really Stir   It vigorously with a wooden spoon or something  like that so in with the chicken stock back in  

With the chicken pieces wonderful plus those are  the juices that rested out of it and you can see   how much is simmering there I decided to add a  bay leaf you don’t have to do that and on with  

The lid and like I said earlier if you haven’t got  a pan with a lid like that a tray a cooking tray   you know something like that it’ll be fine just  try to stop most of the liquid evaporating and  

Now what was doing there after about 15 minutes  of cooking I was saying are they tender no and   they’re not they weren’t really cooked at that  stage but another 15 minutes or so they’re now   ready they’re nice and tender they’re fully  cooked the knife was going in nice and easily  

Ho those out um and then get the cream in so this  is creme fresh if you want to sound all fancy uh   double cream will be all right heavy cream you  might find it a little bit too rich so if it  

Does taste a bit Rich squeeze the lemon juice or  something like that we’ll just bring back a little   bit the acidity it’s a balance you know richness  acidity it’s all um it’s all your palette you  

Taste it and you until you’re happy with it but  basically I wanted to reduce that sauce down to   make it a bit richer it’s very luxurious sauce  there but that wasn’t absolutely essential you  

Could have as soon as you put the cream in you  could have just put the chicken in and given it   a few minutes of simmering and it would have been  absolutely fine the sauce would have just been a  

Bit looser a bit wetter and I wanted it like that  look at it oh umptious oh my God that’s good and   uh we’re basically done now so there you go more  parsley on top just to make it look nice and we’re  

Going to serve this sort of buffet style that’s  what you do you put it on a board on the table you   got a couple of dishes of veg to go with it and  you’re going to give that to the family they’re  

Going to dive in and they’re going to think you’re  the boss they’re going to absolutely love you for   that and so I’m just give myself a bowl of it now  some of that gorgeous sauce I am salivating as I  

Remember how lovely this was and yes it’s nice and  tender so all that’s left now is a pour a glass   of wine and we’re going to hand you over to me  for the tasting so chicken Fri aay delightful me

Think how does it taste so the chicken is  cooked nice and slowly that’s why I like the   thigh so much it’s got so much more flavor  but it needs a bit more slow cook to become tender m tastes great it’s been absorbing the  lovely flavors from the chicken stock  

And the wine and the garlic and  everything it’s oh my God it’s good yum I’m going to do some damage to that in  a minute um what else can I say it’s a delightful   simple classic French style dish um that I first  made back in the ’90s at at College when I was  

Training to be a cook anyway and um tastes  better now that version tastes better than   the first version I made that was wonderful  um thank you every so much for watching and   joining in and liking and subscribing and all  those things and comments much appreciated all  

Along the way and I’ll um I’ll catch you again  pretty soon bye-bye Salo s skull start again