Beer Chicken Stew with Biscuit Topping

if you are looking for a rib-sticking cold weather supper look no further than this chicken stew with biscuits on top it's kind of halfway between chicken and dumplings and a potpie and it comes courtesy of my dear friend Ben Harrison who is very kindly using my biscuit recipe from an earlier video grate up a stick of frozen butter straight out of the freezer using the big holes on a box grater then quickly you're gonna toss it into two and a half cups of flour the traditional southern biscuit flour would be white lily self-rising flour if you can't get that I do cake flour plus three teaspoons baking powder and one teaspoon salt Ben lives in California so I'm guessing that's what he did you could totally use all-purpose flour instead of cake flour they just won't be as soft chill that in the fridge while you start your stew get yourself maybe eight ounces of mushrooms any mushrooms those look to be creamy knees you can see been trimming away the woody stems and then just cutting them into big thick slices mushrooms shrink a ton when you cook them so always cut them bigger than you want them then you're looking to get maybe two cups of whatever cut-up aromatic vegetables you want Ben's got a couple of carrots that he is notably not peeling because this dish is rustic AF thickly sliced quarters is what he's doing there now he's gonna peel a few shallots you could totally use any form of onion and weeping after cutting out this whoa poor little baby why am i dunking on my own friend well two reasons he is irritatingly tall unlike me and unlike me he actually went to film school which is why his footage here looks irritatingly good compared to mine is that not the most California looking light you've ever seen now he's cutting up a bulb of fennel that's the celery like vegetable the tastes of licorice but only mildly so I freaking love fennel even if you don't like that flavor of anise you really should try fennel balled it cooks up really sweet get yourself half a pound of bacon and cut it up into big ol chunks you can see Ben there is using a thick cut bacon that's going to get you really luscious chewy chunks in the end thin sliced bacon would give you these disappointing little crumbles he'll use slab bacon if you can get it put a big oven-safe pot on like medium-high heat a Dutch oven was born for a meal like this throw your bacon in and get it frying get some color on it and get most of the fat melted out while it's going prep your chicken for chicken thighs poultry is much more expensive he's got boneless skinless which saves you some effort if you only ever cook with chicken breasts you've got to give thighs a try in your stews so much more flavorful and when they're slow-cooked the texture is just anxious Ben is tossing them in flour a very old-school technique out comes the bacon with a slotted spoon so is to leave the fat behind then Ben is gonna fry them thighs in that their bacon fat which is one of my favorite sentences I've said lately that flour is helping him get some golden color on the meat later it'll help the sauce adhere to the chicken pieces and it'll thicken the sauce a little bit out it comes that meat is nowhere near cook yet but that's totally fine he was just browning the outside now at this point Ben pours off about half of the fat in that pan because he is a nearly 7-foot wee little baby with delicate sensibilities I'd leave it in but if you don't want your stew to grease you dump out some of the fat vegetables go in and they should really quickly release enough water that you can use it to deglaze the pan before the stuff stuck to the bottom starts to burn mushrooms go in and then Ben is scraping in the leaves from a few sprigs of fresh thyme but use whatever herbs you like fresh or dried doesn't matter bacon goes in followed by the chicken and rather than dirty another cutting board Ben is just using his kitchen shears to snip the thighs into bite-sized pieces right there in the pan you could cut them up normal like before you put them in or just let them fall apart naturally as they cook whatever you want to do then comes one 12-ounce beer lager or anything else on the light side I fear that the proliferation of very hoppy Pale Ales and such has resulted in some disappointed home cooks they try to stew with that stuff and it makes their dinner really bitter go with a lawnmower a beer for this or if you don't want to cook with any alcohol at all might I suggest a lesser quantity of apple juice you don't want things too sweet use apple juice cut with water and even if you use the beer you're still going to need some water enough to make sure everything is covered in liquid salt and pepper be conservative with your seasoning because this is going to reduce and you can always taste it and add more later get it hot then take the heat down to a simmer and let it keep going uncovered for 30 or 40 minutes until the sauce is reduced and thickened a bit and the chicken is getting nice and soft during which time you can pre-heat your oven to 450 Fahrenheit and make your biscuits butter and dry ingredients come out of the fridge and in goes a cup of cold buttermilk buttermilk gives them an insane yogurty twang in fact you could use plain yogurt loosened up with some plain milk just barely bring everything together then pour it ton of flour onto your table dump everything out gently mold everything into a blob and then roughly roll it out to maybe an inch thick fold it over on itself once quick roll fold it over again little flour on top if it's starting to stick roll it out to an inch fold it over again and repeat one or two more times rolling and folding with those little cold shreds of butter in there will give you a flaky layered texture if you used warm butter it would just melt the dough into a homogeneous mass get it rolled out to an inch thick the final time and then cut your biscuits Ben is using a metal 1 cup measure and try to leave as little in the way of scraps as possible you can gather up the scraps like that roll them out again and punch out a few more biscuits but they won't have the same laminated texture if your stew isn't ready yet get those biscuits in the fridge before the butter starts to melt you could taste your stew for seasoning now you can see that it's looking reasonably thick and glossy but it shouldn't look too thick because it's gonna cook some more float your biscuits on top like beautiful little butter clouds and speaking of butter Ben's got some that he's melted in a pan with pepper and herbs and now he's using that to brush the biscuit tops nice move that's gonna help the biscuits brown in the oven which is where the whole pot goes now 450 Fahrenheit for 20 to 25 minutes or until the biscuits look done it's that dry heat that makes this different from chicken and dumplings which is usually done exclusively on the stovetop and therefore you don't get that crispy caramelized top there that is an autumnal delight right there pour yourself another beer that drunk Shimoda pint glass is actually podcast merch it's an inside joke from the greatest generation and the greatest discovery which are very funny and shockingly popular podcasts were Ben and our mutual friend Adam pranic irreverently review various Star Trek shows I actually wrote a lot of the music for those podcasts you should check them out links are in the description you might also consider the podcast friendly-fire where Ben and Adam sit at the feet of ageing indie rock icon John Roderick and they all talk about or movies I feel there'd be a big overlap between people who like that podcast and people who would like this stew not sure why but I'm pretty sure that's a true thing that I just said thanks Ben for the recipe and stop being so tall

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 552,461

Rating: 4.9481511 out of 5

Keywords: chicken recipes, chicken stew, chicken thigh, main dish, comfort food, chicken pot pie, chicken recipe, how to make, chicken pot pie with biscuits, cooking video, how to cook chicken, chicken recipes easy, chicken recipes for dinner, chicken recipes for dinner easy, chicken pot pie soup, chicken pot pie recipe, chicken and dumplings, chicken and dumplings recipe, chicken and dumplings with biscuits, Ben harrison, benjamin ahr harrison, the greatest generation

Id: uRFWnL1tg7o

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019