Chicken Fricassée with Shallots, Mushrooms and Bacon

This rustic French dish, a classic Chicken Fricassée, is all about fresh chicken thighs seared in butter and braised in white wine with sweet French shallots, mushrooms, and tasty bacon bits. This recipe sounds fancy but it's not. Although it's a French classic, it's very achievable for the home cook, because it's just a comforting single pot recipe, using humble ingredients from your kitchen (although I did make a special trip to the supermarket to buy French shallots). There are many versions of this dish, depending on what the cook has on hand at the time, but I was thrilled with how this particular combination tasted. There is no fancy French sauce, just white wine flavoured with beautiful ingredients. 

What is a Chicken Fricassée?

Well it's not a stew and it's not just a stove top dish. It is more of a cooking method, according to Audrey Le Goff, my current go to French cooking guru. The meat is first sautéed, in butter of course, so that it is brown and crisp. A good white wine is added, not that much though, and the meat is then braised in the oven with bacon, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs and other aromatics, until tender and full of flavour. The chicken that resulted from this cooking technique was fall off the bone tender, juicy and so delicious and also allows natural umami flavours to develop with minimal ingredients. Mushrooms always assist with creating umami flavours.  Whilst I love a good chicken traybake for convenience, versatility and lots of flavour, this method of cooking, whilst it takes a little more time, produces superior results.

Ready for the oven

Fricassée is very popular in the rustic French kitchen because of it's versatility. It can also be made with rabbit or veal, but these days chicken is the more popular choice. The vegetables used are up to the cook's discretion. I added mushrooms to this dish for the umami factor, and because I love them. They just seem to epitomise French cooking for me, and I had them on hand, but they are not essential. Carrots and onions are popular and inexpensive additions as well. Use your imagination and I'm all for sneaking in some extra vegetables if possible for those at your table who are a little adverse to eating vegetables as a side dish. There's often one in every household isn't there? 

I love to cook French meals, and of course they are simply delicious, but if I'm perfectly honest, they also bring back very fond memories of my trip to France in April/May 2023 to visit my son and daughter in law and my three beautiful grandchildren, and it's just another way that I can feel close to them. I was really surprised at how expensive chicken was in the supermarkets in Montpellier, double the price here but then I was subconsciously converting everything into Australian dollars, and I also found the cheaper chickens were often quite bony, but also good for making soup.  The more expensive corn fed chickens, which were yellow in colour, were very expensive and similar to the price of our red cuts of meat here. So cooking chicken was always a treat and it deserved to be cooked well, similar to how I have cooked the chicken in this dish.

Serves: 4   Prep time: 20 minutes   Cooking time: 55 minutes

INGREDIENTS

4 chicken thighs, skin-on, bone-in

1 tsp salt

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

2 slices bacon, cut into fine strips

2 tbsp (28.5g) unsalted butter, divided

2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

8 French shallots, (about 400 g total), peeled and cut in half (or quarters if too big)

 7-8 sprigs fresh thyme

1/3 cup (79 ml) dry white wine

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Around 2-3 hours before you plan to start cooking, remove the chicken pieces from the frig, rinse under cold tap water and with some paper towelling pat them dry. Season each chicken thigh with salt and pepper on both sides. Set them aside on more paper towelling, cover, and let them rest to near room temperature. 

Pre-heat your oven to 180 deg. C (350 deg. F) with a rack in the middle of the oven.

2. On the top of the stove, cook the bacon strips over a medium-high heat for 6-7 minutes, in a large oven-safe frying pan. Stir them occasionally, until they are fully cooked and lightly crisped up. Set the cooked bacon aside. Reserve the precious fat drippings in the pan.

3. Add 1 tablespoon of butter to the frying pan. Bring the butter to a sizzle, then add the chicken thighs, skin-side down, to the pan. Cook them for about 8-10 minutes (uncovered) until the chicken skin is beautifully golden brown. Turn the chicken pieces over, and cook for 6-7 more minutes. Transfer the golden chicken to a plate, and cover with some alfoil. Reserve the chicken drippings in the pan.

4. Lower the stove heat to medium and tip another tablespoon of butter into the pan. The butter will start to sizzle, and then add the shallots, mushrooms and garlic. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are tender and lightly caramelized. It's okay if some of the shallots separate and others stay in tact, this adds interest to the dish.

5. Position the chicken thighs back into the pan, amongst the other ingredients, and pour over the white wine. Top the chicken pieces with the cooked bacon, the thyme sprigs, and season to taste with extra black pepper.

6. Transfer the pan into the preheated oven for 30 minutes (uncovered).

Remove from the oven and serve.

If you prefer a rich creamier sauce, a heavy cream can be added to the dish at the end. This used to be done in some old-fashioned versions of  a Fricassée, but these days the heavy cream is often skipped with more lighter dishes being preferred. This could be a seasonal choice as well. 

It's easy to just serve this meal with green beans, rice or noodles. Because I love potatoes, and so do the French, which was my observation from my time in France earlier in the year, I wrapped some baby potatoes in alfoil, placed them on an oven rack in the oven to bake when I turned on the oven and started preparing this dish. The potatoes were cooked perfectly when the meal was ready, and delicious with a little sour cream.

This recipe is based on one from the French cookbook, "Rustic French Cooking Made Easy". by Audrey Le Goff. I've made a few of her recipes now and they never disappoint. I was also thrilled to find her cookbook in a lovely English bookshop, yes English, in Montpellier when I was over there. 

The English bookshop and cafe

In this photo below, my son Matthew and I are enjoying some valuable time together over a cuppa outside the English bookshop in the Old Town of Montpellier.

After a little shopping, in the old town, near the Bookshop and cafe.

A typical Montpellier street in the old town.

Warm wishes,

Pauline