How to Make Chicken Fricassee | Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with chicken fricassee that's right after a decade of requests I'm finally getting around to doing this classic dish and if you're my age the first time you heard about fricassee and something was probably on Bugs Bunny and yes in an homage I was going to use rabbit for this but then I remember not many people cook rabbit and the ones that do are used to adapting recipes for chicken to cook their little furry former friends so I went with a chicken and I thought this really did come out incredibly well so with that let's go ahead and get started by seasoning some skin on bone-in chicken thighs and we'll do that by generously applying some kosher salt to both sides and yes you can use boneless skinless thighs for this or boneless skinless chicken breasts but please don't it won't be as good oh and if there's an actual live Human at the store when you're buying your chicken thighs have the person behind the counter pick out six that are the same size so they cook nice and evenly but anyway once those are seasoned we'll go ahead and place those skin side down in a skillet set over medium high heat in which we've placed about a tablespoon of vegetable oil and yes of course we want to let that oil get hot before we place the chicken in okay if that skin doesn't Sizzle when it hits the pan it's not hot enough take it out and let it heat for another minute and we really want to take our time here and get a beautiful sear on that surface not only so it looks better but also so we can render out that thin layer of fat below the skin which is going to give it a better texture later and it won't be what we call in the business flabby and if you need another reason that flavorful rendered chicken fat is going to be perfect for doing the next step which as you'll see is Browning some mushrooms but anyway first things first and once that skin side is nicely seared and we flip those over we will give that other side a couple minutes as well at which point we'll turn off the heat and remove those two plate which we will just set aside until we need it and then before we do add our mushrooms we will take a little inventory regarding the amount of fat since we want about two or three tablespoons and if we have more than that we can always spoon a few tablespoons out and use that for something else like some incredible home fries or next level grilled cheese and that's it once we're happy with the amount of fat we can dump in our thickly sliced mushrooms and we'll set our heat back to medium high and toss in a nice big pinch of salt and then we'll cook these stirring until very nicely browned and if you've been watching for a while you know how this goes all right first we make them wet then we make them dry then we make them wet and what that means is the salt's going to draw out liquid from the mushrooms and the mushrooms will basically start boiling in their own juices but eventually that evaporates away and since fat doesn't evaporate the mushrooms will start frying and before you know it they will be beautifully browned and hopefully looking something like this okay so we made him wet and then we made him dry which means we can now move on with the rest of the ingredients and then eventually make these wet by adding our cooking liquids but for now what we'll do is toss in some sliced shallots as well as some minced garlic and some diced onion and we'll stir all this together and cook it for a few minutes until our onions start to soften and turn translucent and while we're doing that in between stirs we can go ahead and toss in some freshly ground black pepper plus if we want and we almost always do we can add a few shakes of cayenne and yes if you feel like switching stirring utensils go ahead okay I decided this flat wooden spatula would be better at this job than that more flexible spoonula and if you ever feel like you need to make that kind of change go ahead I mean you are after all the Bugs Bunny of your frequency and then once we feel like our shallots garlic and onions have cooked long enough which by the way can just be onions and garlic but anyway once those are set we'll go ahead and sprinkle in just a little bit of flour and we will stir that in and cook it for about a minute to help give our sauce a little bit of body later then once that flour has cooked for about a minute or two we can start adding our cooking liquids starting with the most important and that would be some nice drinkable white wine and I use about twice as much as your average fricassee recipe since I think most versions don't call for enough and you don't get as much flavor and acidity as I think we need so I'm going with a cup and a half oh and if you're keeping score at home that wine was a Sauvignon Blanc and what we'll do is Stir that in and then raise our heat to high since we want this wine to reduce by about half and because we did add that little bit of flour as this reduces you'll see things thicken up a little bit so we'll cook this on high for a few minutes and then once that wine has reduced by about half and no this is not some kind of precise measurement just reduce it down until it looks a little bit like this at which point we can dump in our chicken broth homemade or prepared and as usual if times are tough you can just use water with maybe a spoon of chicken base and then while we wait for this come back to a simmer we can toss in some freshly picked thyme leaves as well as one dried bay leaf which you can just add at the same time all right I was spacing out and that's it once those last couple ingredients are stirred in and everything's come back to a boil on high heat we'll go ahead and reduce our heat down somewhere between medium low and low and we can add our chicken back in skin side up and please do not under any circumstances forget to add those accumulated juices on the plate backhand okay we paid for those juices and darn it we're gonna use them plus they add flavor so never discard those and that's it we'll go ahead and cover this tightly and we will let it simmer gently for about 45 minutes and about halfway through if we can remember I think we should uncover and go ahead and turn these over and besides just giving them a flip if we wanted to move them around a little so that those are in different positions in the pan okay you could do that as well and whether that does anything or not who knows but if I've said it once I've said it a hundred times it is fun to play with your food especially when it's still in the pan but anyway we'll go ahead and flip and or move and we'll pop that lid back on and like I said we'll continue cooking that covered for a total of about 45 minutes and at that point we can go ahead and uncover and we can flip those back over to the original skin side up position and we will complete the rest of the cooking process without the lid on so that while our chicken finishes cooking our sauce is reducing and thickening which are basically the two things we're looking for before we move into final production and I do like to baste the meat while it finishes cooking which again I'm not sure how much of a practical effect that has but man it just feels right and is surprisingly therapeutic oh yeah if you're feeling stressed spoon some hot liquid over a simmering chicken thigh that'll fix you up and that's it besides the occasional basting we're just waiting for our sauce to reduce down a little more for our chicken to finish getting nice and tender and of course the sauce thing we can just do by eye but you can't really see if something's tender so we'll want to check with the tip of a knife or a fork and while we don't want these falling apart that blade should slide in pretty easily which mine did and once that happens we'll go ahead and finish this dish up with a nice splash of heavy cream or for extra credit an equal amount of creme fraiche which is simply a fermented heavy cream which has a little more flavor and acidity and I would have used that but I had a ton of cream in the fridge so that's what I'm sterned in and then once that cream's been Incorporated and we spoon those down much creamier cooking liquids over our chicken like nobody's watching we can raise our heat up a little bit to medium and cook this until we're very happy with everything and I'd love to tell you how long that's going to take but I can't depends on many things but mostly how thick you want your sauce right by now our chicken should be nicely tender and we could serve this anytime but maybe you want to reduce your sauce down until it's very thick or maybe like me you just want it to reduce a little more so it's just barely thick enough to coat a spoon but in any case before you serve this make sure you give the sauce a taste just to see if it needs another pinch of salt or maybe an extra Shake of cayenne and that's it once we get to where we want it to go we'll go ahead and serve that up and as far as presentation goes we'll probably want to do one last basting of the top plus maybe one more scattering of fresh thyme so everything looks nice and fresh for our guests and or our contractually obligated pictures and this was looking and smelling so good I could not resist grabbing a fork and knife and taking a couple bites right out of the pan and no you should not be cutting with a knife down to the bottom of one of these nice pans but you know what I was starving and my wife was in the other room so I went for it and I'm so glad I did because that my friends really was extraordinary okay such a simple comforting dish but simple does not mean not complex although I guess technically it does but what I'm trying to say is the flavor profile is not one note all right there is a lot going on here and all of it is good so I went ahead and plated one up properly and spooned over plenty of that amazing mushroomy creamy sauce finished up with one last pinch of time at which point I grabbed a fork a knife and dug in and I started in the back with a nice piece of skin which is one of my favorite parts of this and no it's not crispy but as I mentioned that fat has been rendered out so it doesn't have that chewy flabby texture and it is very very flavorful as is pretty much everything else including those mushrooms which if you brown them properly should be every bit as Savory as the meat but anyway that's it my take on classic chicken fricassee yes there were a lot of Little Steps during the cooking process but they were all very easy and there's absolutely no reason even a novice cook can't produce something as good or even better than what I did and like I said earlier this will also work with rabbit but either way whether you use a rascally rabbit or chicken I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and is always in joy

Channel: Food Wishes

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Id: mCNH9rn2OS0

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2022