Chicken fricassee with mushrooms

Meat dishes are the classics of any dinner table: both everyday and everyday. They are present in the kitchen of every nation, and almost every one can be modified at will. The greatest number of recipes is counted with the use of white chicken meat: light, nourishing and completely fat. For example, the French dish fricassee, which has many analogues in other countries.

What is fricassee?

The etymology of the name of the dish goes back to the French word fricassée, which literally means "all kinds of things." This definition partially reveals the origin of the fricassee - its ancestor is a stew: stew with vegetables and spices. According to the cooking scheme, this dish with it is almost identical, and the main difference is that for fricassee only white meat is used, which is necessarily cooked with white sauce.

It is interesting that white color prevails in the served dish: white rice usually serves as a side dish for light meat and sauce. As for vegetable additives, they are minimal and only emphasize the taste of meat - it is capers, mushrooms or asparagus. There are variants of fricassee and green peas.

The classic version of fricassee is made from calf or rabbit meat, chicken is used a little less frequently. There are also recipes for this dish with pigeon meat, and more complex ones, modified in other countries, versions with pork or lamb. It is difficult to say whether they can be considered traditional fricassee: after all, the very idea of ​​white meat is lost here. Anyway, the meat is deprived of bones and skins, must be roasted when using butter and stewed in broth, to which is added flour, lemon juice and cream. Also, the classic recipe assumes the presence of egg yolk.

From the words of French chefs, fricassee is easy to spoil, if you make a wrong sauce, which will stew meat. Regardless of whether the dish is based on a rabbit, or modified to pork fricassee, the white sauce recipe remains unchanged. For its preparation, butter is required to dissolve in a pan placed in the oven, then wheat flour is added to it, and the mixture is kept at a high temperature for several minutes. Since fricassee is cooked with white sauce, its color cannot be allowed to change.

During the preparation of fricassee, the French often use a bouquet of garni: it is a kind of analogue to Russian bay leaf, but with a large assortment of herbs. Small is made up of thyme, parsley, celery, and bay leaf, and large consists of 11 items, including rare herbs such as Pimpinella, Chervil, Cheber, etc. It is put in the broth for 2-3 minutes at the very end of preparation, and after the specified time, withdrawn. So that the herbs do not disperse according to the dish, they are tied with a thread or wrapped in gauze.

Classic chicken fricassee: a recipe

This French dish is ready to submit to even the most inexperienced hostesses, but it is recommended to begin its preparation from the traditional version without additional ingredients.

Composition:

1. Chicken fillet - 500 g
2. Butter - 2 tbsp. l
3. Flour - 2 tbsp. l
4. Salt, spices
5. Cream - 2 tbsp.

Cooking:

• The fillet is rinsed in cold water, cleaned of films and dried blood, cut into rectangles of no more than 2 to 3 cm. The thickness of the pieces is best maintained with the index finger.
• After that, the meat is salted and rolled in wheat flour.
• At the bottom of the pan with thick walls laid out butter, which must be melted. It is recommended to do it in the oven, but classical roasting on the stove is allowed.
• As soon as the butter starts to bubble, pieces of meat are laid in it: they should be fried until they light up. The power of the burner is kept maximum.
• After 4-5 minutes, ground pepper and nutmeg are spilled on the meat pieces, cream is poured into the pan, and it is covered with a lid.
• As soon as the sauce begins to boil and thicken, the lid moves, the heat of the burner decreases to ¼ from the maximum, the meat is stewed for another 30 minutes.
• If you do not like nutmeg, you can do without it, replacing it with turmeric or cardamom, or without adding spices at all. Also, the fat content of the cream is allowed to increase to 33-35%.
• An important point of this recipe, which is worth focusing on, is working with cream: they often fold off the heat, which affects the look and taste of the finished dish. To avoid such an incident, as soon as the sauce begins to boil, the power of the burner is reduced to the minimum of the allowable values, on which it is possible to continue stewing the meat. Cooking fricassee with cream in the oven, at a temperature of 130-150 degrees and with a covered lid, is considered ideal here.

How to cook chicken fricassee with mushrooms?

Chicken fricassee with mushrooms is already obliged by Cubans for their origin: it was they who made the recipe into the species under which he is familiar today. The proportions of the components have changed, are changing and will continue to change, but the ingredients of the dish themselves will remain unchanged.

Composition:

1. Chicken fillet - 1 kg
2. Champignons - 300 g
3. Bulb - 1 pc.
4. Celery stalk, carrots - 1 pc.
5. Butter - 3 tbsp. l
6. Egg yolks - 2 pcs.
7. Flour - 2 tbsp. l
8. Olive oil - 1 tbsp. l
9. Chicken broth - 3 tbsp.
10. Fatty cream - 0.5 tbsp.
11. Dry white wine - 0.5 tbsp.
12. Provencal herbs, garni bouquet, salt, pepper

Cooking:

• The fillet, as in the previous recipe, is washed and cut into small pieces, after which you should rub salt and a pinch of Provencal herbs, then leave the meat for 10-15 minutes, so that it is soaked with the mixture.
• After that, a thick cast-iron frying pan is heated on the stove, and butter is placed in it (2 tablespoons of 3). As soon as the foam goes over its surface, you will need to wait for it to settle, and then dip the meat pieces into the hot oil.
• The fire is reduced by 1/3, the chicken is stewed until all its sides turn white. At the same time, it is impossible to brown the fillets: it must remain light. With the specified amount of meat and a large diameter of the pan it takes 8-10 minutes to bring the product to the desired condition.
• Onions, carrots and celery stalk are cut into cubes or thin half-rings, and then thrown into the pan, where the chicken was fried. Her before laying vegetables must be removed.
• In order to quench the vegetables and not to get the crust, olive oil is poured into the pan, and the fire is reduced to from the maximum. It takes 10 minutes to bring products to readiness, for which they will soften, and the onion will additionally acquire a golden hue.
• After that, the champignons peeled and cut into plates should be thrown into the pan with vegetables and wait until they begin to darken: in time it takes about 5-7 minutes.
• Now all the ingredients, languishing in a pan, are poured with flour, and on the same low heat, stew for another 2-3 minutes, until the flour is absorbed into them. It is necessary to mix the components of the mixture with a wooden spatula.
• The penultimate stage is the addition of wine, which, after increasing the power of the burner, should boil, and of chicken broth, which should be prepared in advance. You can use the bouillon cube, but it is better to cook the broth on the soup set or chicken wings with the addition of an onion head.
• The liquid should boil again, and then it is important to make sure that all possible lumps of flour in it are separated. At the same time, the oven is heated: the optimum temperature will be 150-170 degrees.
• Meat is placed in a pan with vegetables and sauce, and the dish is removed in the oven for 30 minutes. Then a bouquet of garni is added, and the fricassee needs to be sown for another 5-7 minutes, after which the herbs are removed, and the meat is placed on a plate with a skimmer.
• Cream and egg yolks are whipped in a separate bowl, in the process of non-stop beating, they are poured into a frying pan with sauce and vegetables, and the dish (without meat!) Has to stand in the oven for another 5-7 minutes to thicken the mixture.

Serving chicken fricassee with mushrooms can be done in 2 ways: in a common frying pan, where the meat is reconnected with vegetables, or by distributing the chicken into batch dishes, and pouring the sauce to each of them. for themselves. And once having tried this unpretentious French dish, it is difficult to remain indifferent to it.