Recipe: Chicken Fricassée (Gordon Ramsay)

It definitely feels good to be back in my own kitchen and cooking for my family again. Since Gordon Ramsay month has not ended yet, I picked this chicken fricassée recipe to try. Fricassée is a French method of cooking whereby meat is cut up, sauteed and braised, then served with its sauce. 

Chicken Fricassée

Gordon Ramsay uses a whole chicken jointed into 8 pieces and cooks it with smoked bacon, garlic and mushrooms, but I decided to use 4 chicken marylands, cut up into 4 drumsticks and 4 thighs. The recipe calls for flambeing the chicken with brandy, but I skipped this step and just simmered it at high heat for a couple of minutes. Since I prefer crispy skin when I eat chicken thigh/drumsticks, I placed the cooked chicken under a hot grill for several minutes for the skin to crisp up (but this step is completely optional).

This was a huge hit with my kids - even before I finished snapping photos, they have already finished one drumstick each. Eaten with the sauce, I have to admit it's really delicious! The chicken is moist and flavorful. I would definitely make this again, seeing that it takes less than 45 minutes to prepare and results in an utterly satisfying dish.

Chicken Fricassée
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Home Cooking
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves 4


Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
4 chicken maryland, jointed into 4 drumsticks and 4 thighs
100g bacon lardons or streaky bacon, sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
150g white button mushrooms, halved
1 bay leaf
2 rosemary sprigs
2 thyme sprigs, leaves only
50ml brandy
400ml chicken stock
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To garnish
2 sprigs of thyme or chopped parsley


1. In a large heavy-based sauté pan or casserole over medium heat, add the olive oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then add to the hot pan (put the thighs in skin side down) and sauté for 3-4 minutes on one side, until golden. (You may need to do it in two batches if your pan is small) Turn the chicken over, add the lardons, garlic and mushrooms and mix well.  Stir in the bay leaf, rosemary and thyme.

2. Add the brandy, and increase to medium high heat and simmer for 1 minute, then lower the heat back to medium and simmer gently for 2-3 minutes.

3. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered, over medium low heat for 10 minutes, then cover and cook for a further 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

4. Transfer to a baking tray, and place under hot grill for 4-5 minutes for crispy skin (this is an additional step which I did to crisp up the skin).

5. In the meantime, increase the heat under the pan to medium high to reduce and slightly thicken the sauce.

6. Discard the garlic, rosemary and bay leaf. Spoon sauce with mushroom and bacon onto plate and top with chicken. Garnish with thyme (leaves only) or chopped parsley.


Note: Original recipe uses 1 large free range chicken jointed into 8 pieces. I used thin streaky bacon cut into strips as I couldn't get bacon lardons here. I also substituted chestnut mushrooms for white button mushroom. I also did not flambé the chicken after adding the brandy.

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* I am submitting this to the "Cook Like Gordon Ramsay" event which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Mich of Piece of Cake. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from any Gordon Ramsay websites or cookbooks for the whole month of August 2014. You can link your posts at one of the host's pages.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in August 2014 - please do not link older posts.Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Mich of Piece of Cake and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:




* I am submitting this post to "Cook-Your-Books #15" hosted by Joyce.

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