Thursday 7 October 2010

Chicken casserole

So this is for the lovely Shauna Marshall on Twitter !

I love chicken and as a family we eat loads of it, as my label cloud on the right would suggest. This is a quick, easy, cheap and very tasty comfort food recipe perfect for this time of year. I don't serve it with anything else apart from maybe some crusty bread to mop up the gravy. This comes courtesy of my Mum and has so many memories from my childhood.

CHICKEN CASSEROLE
serves 4-6



1 medium chicken (about 1.6kg)
2 onions roughly chopped
4 carrots peeled and roughly chopped
2-4 sticks of celery chopped
2 cloves garlic peeled and chopped
chicken stock
mixed herbs dried or a bouquet garni if you're feeling posh !
enough potatoes (floury type, I always use Maris Pipers) for the people you're feeding about 400-500g
cornflour to thicken

Joint the chicken into 4 - this is where the conversation on twitter came about regarding Masterchef and the right way to joint a chicken, and then my way !!
Put in a large casserole with the onions, carrots, celery, garlic, stock and herbs plus some seasoning
Put the lid on and cook in a lowish oven for about 2 hours
Remove the chicken from the casserole and take off the skin and remove meat from the bones and put back
Discard the skin and bones
Add the potatoes and put back in the oven on a slightly higher heat for 45 mins
If you're adding dumplings add about 20 mins from the end of cooking and thicken with cornflour then. Otherwise add the cornflour with the potatoes.

For the dumplings

6oz self raising flour
pinch of baking powder
S&P
shake of dried mixed herbs
3oz suet
cold water to mix

Mix everything together into a dough - not too sticky and then shape into small balls and add to the casserole about 20 mins before the end of cooking.

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