How to Cook Chicken Chasseur
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 1 ½ hours
Ingredients needed to make Chicken Chasseur:
- 3 lb 5 oz whole chicken, jointed with eight chunks
- 3 ½ oz chestnut mushrooms, halved
- 5 ½ oz button mushrooms
- 2 oz all purpose flour
- 5 ½ oz shallots, peeled
- 2 plum tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and finely chopped
- ½ bunch fresh tarragon, half of it finely chopped
- 18 fl oz chicken stock
- 3 tbsp tomato puree
- 6 fl oz white wine
- 4 oz butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 ½ oz caster sugar
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cooking instructions for Chicken Chasseur:
- Rub the seasonings all over the chicken pieces and dust either side with flour to dredge uniformly.
- Heat oil and 1/3 of the butter in a large saucepan over moderate flame until the butter foams.
- Place the dredged chicken into it with their skin-side facing down and shallow fry for a couple of minutes or until it browns.
- Flip them over and fry the other side for 2 more minutes in a similar fashion; remove from heat and set aside.
- Melt another 1/3 of the butter in a clean pan over moderate heat until it foams and sauté the mushrooms in it, stirring at times, until they turn golden brown evenly.
- Transfer most of it into the pan with chicken and set the rest aside separately.
- Melt remaining butter in the same pan and stir fry the shallots for 2-3 minutes, along with caster sugar, until they caramelize and turn golden brown.
- Stir in a splash of wine and continue to cook the mixture until it starts boiling.
- Set ¼ of this mixture aside and tip rest of it into the pan with chicken and mushrooms.
- Stir in tomato puree and stock until well combined and throw in the whole herb sprigs.
- Heat the mixture until it starts boiling and reduce it to a simmer over lower heat.
- Simmer for an hour or until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce thickens slightly.
- Stir in the chopped herbs as well as the tomatoes until distributed evenly throughout the sauce and adjust the seasonings if necessary.
- Continue to simmer it for another couple of minutes and drain out the cooked chicken onto serving plates.
- Pour the sauce over them and top it up with the reserved shallots as well as mushrooms to garnish.
- Serve warm.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
