french chicken stew

This is a very easy chicken dish with a French touch. The combination of tarragon and French Dijon mustard adds these amazing flavours. Attention, an absolute must is the side dish: Rice! You will have so much of this amazing sauce that it really needs rice to soak in; you can even serve bread with it to finish it up to the last drop. I have seen this recipe on TV, a British food icon (Rick Stein) made it with rabbit, but as I don’t eat rabbits I tried it with chicken - a success!

Ingredients for 4:

• 8-10 pieces of chicken (legs / thighs or wings are best, don’t take breasts)

• 1 bunch of fresh tarragon

• Bacon bits (a hand full)

• Dijon mustard

• 1 onion

• 2 garlic cloves

• 2 dl chicken stock

• 1 TBS white flour

• 4 TBS crème fraiche

• 2 dl of dry white wine

Directions:

With your hands, cover the chicken in mustard, smear it all over the chicken and let it rest in a bowl (in the fridge) for at least an hour to marinate. Wash your hands well!

In a big and heavy cast iron pan, add some goose fat (if you have, otherwise use butter and oil mixed) and sear the chicken on both sides (season them with salt and pepper) until slightly roasted and coloured, then transfer the chicken to a bowl, deglaze the pan with the white wine, and transfer the liquid as well to the bowl.

Add more fat or butter, and sear the bacon bits and the roughly chopped onions in the same pan, add the garlic cloves (whole, slightly smashed with your hands) and keep roasting for about five minutes. Sieve the flower on top (it will help thicken the sauce a bit), then add the stock and stir well, add the chicken, the liquid, and bring to a bubble.

Cover the pan and transfer to the 180 degrees hot oven, leave it bubbling away for at least one hour.

Transfer the pan back to the stove, add 3 TBS of mustard, the chopped tarragon and the crème fraiche.

Enjoy!