You can’t ignore french cuisine when thinking about good food around the world. French food can give the impression of hard to cook, some of the traditional dishes are actually very easy, delicious and pack of nutrition with few nutritious cooking tips.

Chicken Fricassée is traditionally browned chicken stewed in creamy mushroom sauce. It is sometimes considered as the white version of Coq au Vin. Instead of traditional dairy cream, we used light ricotta at the end to thicken and cream up the sauce. This recipe also added some extra ingredients (chickpeas and spinach) to make the dish more hearty and nutritious.

Chicken Fricassée

Serves: 4-6

Time: 40 minutes

Skill required: chopping, pan frying, keeping an eye on stove

Equipment: a deep skillet/pot, 1 big bowl, chopping board, knife

Ingredient list

• 1/2-1 tbsp olive oil

• ~500g chicken pieces (we used mixture of breast, tenderloin, maryland and drumsticks)

• 2 brown onions (sliced/diced)

• 2 cloves of garlic

• ~250g button mushrooms

• 1-2 bay leaves

• 2 sprigs of thyme OR 1tsp dried thyme

• 200g chickpea

• ~30mL white wine(optional)

• 1 cup reduced salt chicken stock

• ~150g baby spinach

• 3-4tbsp (~60g) light ricotta

• Pepper to taste

• Parsley to garnish (optional)
  

Methods

1. On medium-high heat, heat the oil in a skillet, fry the chicken pieces until one side turned brownish-golden in colour (~2-3 minutes). And take them out and set aside.

2. In the same skillet, add onion, garlic, mushroom, bay leaves and thyme, sauté for around 5 minutes before add in the chickpeas.

3. Splash the white wine, and allow all alcohol to evaporate (~30 seconds), then add chicken stock.

4. Put the chicken back into the skillet (raw side down), and simmer for 15 minutes with lid on, and let it reduce down to consistency of your liking with lid off (about 5-10min).

5. Stir in the baby spinach until spinach is wilted, mix ricotta into the sauce until well-cooperated to give a creamy finish, and add pepper to taste.

6. Serve with your choice of starch and garnish with parsley.
   

Dietitian’s Tips

• Choices of starch: baked potato, potato mash, rice, pasta, couscous, polenta and breads work well with this dish

• Turn it vegetarian: Swap chicken to firm tofu, seitan, potatoes or beans; and use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock

• Turn it into a soup: add 1 more cup of water, keep the lid on in step 4 to keep most of the water, with optional ricotta in step 5.

• To keep it low fat: Trim all the fat from chicken, and use a lower fat cut (chicken breast and tenderloins)

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