With our hot summer weather we are having currently I am reminded of just how much I dislike cooking in a hot kitchen. Instead of cooking a meal every night I will often dish up salads instead. Nothing fancy, usually just the old standard salad of an iceberg lettuce shredded, tomatoes and cucumbers cubed, all tossed in a large salad bowl. Sauces are left on the table for everyone to choose. To go with the salad I sometimes shred up some smoked chicken.
Smoked chicken is usually on my shopping list. I love that fact that I don't need to cook it and as with old cold meats it actually goes a lot further than hot meats. With one $10 chicken I can pick all the meat off and get three meals out of it. It goes with the salads, in tortilla's, and can be used in all chicken based recipes.
Yesterday I got out my old and trustworthy Alison Holst cookbook and made up Chicken Fricassee. We haven't had it for a while, and the kiddo's had forgotten how much they like it. It's done in the microwave, and I dished it up with potatoes and silverbeat (from our veggie garden!).
Chicken Fricassee
200g carrots
1 cup sliced celery
4 small onions
50g butter
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup water
2 Tbsp flour
1 tsp green herb stock
1 cup milk
2 cups smoked chicken
2 cups smoked chicken
1/2 - 1 cup of peas
Slice carrots thinly. Cook with celery and quartered onions in the butter, with 1/4 cup water, in a covered casserole at Full power for 8 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Stir in flour and instant stock, then the milk and remaining water. Cook, uncovered, until sauce boils and thickens, stirring every minute. Add chicken and peas, heat for 2 minutes longer and serve with rice or mashed potatoes.
That's Alison's recipe. I tend not to follow them exactly and they always come out tasting good. In the Chicken Fricassee I don't bother weighing carrots, I use about 4 medium sized ones. We don't like celery so we don't add that. A generous dob of margarine instead of butter, which costs too much presently. Instead of green herb stock I'll replace it with a chicken stock cube, or even a flavour sachet out of a packet of instant noodles (The kiddo's cook up four packets for lunch but only use 2 sachets so I'll throw those into casserole type dishes.) and I guess the amount of chicken and peas. Oh, and instead of stirring it every minute (who wants to do that?) I'll microwave for4 minutes, stir, then stir after every 2 minutes of cooking. Takes about five 2 minute blasts. Take it out and let it cool down while you dish up the rest of the tea. Then watch the kiddo's devour their tea. 8:)
2 comments:
Wow this was one of my Mum and I's favourite recipes from Alison, I have, nearly I think, all of her cookbooks. My Dad is sometimes a fussy eater and for some reason didn't like a casserole type thing unless it was brown, hmmm no white sauce. So Mum and I cooked Chicken Fricassee and sneakily put gravy browning in it (it has no flavour etc.) and Dad ate it and raved about how amazing it was and Mum and I were in hysterics. Now when I make it, I always take some over for Dad. He loves it. (I love it more!)
Thank you so much for putting this online. I have the recipe book but left it in storage in NZ when I moved to Australia. I couldn't quite remember all the steps.
I too change it somewhat tho - I do it on the stove instead of the microwave and make it a bit thicker. Then I make individual chicken pot pies with mashed potatoes on top - superb!
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