Chicken Fricassee

While my first meat love is pork, chicken comes in as a close second. I ~~like~~ love chicken. There are so many things you can do with it, fry it, boil it, bake it, grill it, saute it, stew it, or fricassee it. Which is a combination of frying and stewing, I just love saying Fricassee, it makes it sound so exotic, and good. Every so often I get a hankering for a good old fashioned meal of Chicken Fricassee. It's a nice comfort food, and you can serve it with noodles or rice or mashed potatoes or, whatever you like. I think it's a great combination of several veggies, in the past I've made it with celery and green peppers along with the mushrooms, but yesterday I just used half a green pepper, a pound of mushrooms and some green onions for the sauce. And it was good. Very good. And best of all I have leftovers, giggle. Or at least enough left over for another meal. So, I'm putting it in the freezer so the next time I don't feel like cooking, TA DA, my dinner is ready, well almost, I'll still have to defrost it.

To start with, I used some chicken breasts that I'd boned and skinned. But you can use cut up chicken for this as well, if you like drums and thighs, they go wonderfully here.

Chicken Fricassee
4 chicken breasts, boned and skinned or
1 whole chicken cut up, and skinned
2 tbsp. Flour
Salt and Pepper, to taste
4 tablespoons olive oil (just enough to saute the chicken and brown it a little)
1 whole green pepper, cut into chunks
8 oz. mushrooms sliced
4 sliced green onions
2 stalks Celery, chopped (I didn't have any)
2 cups chicken stock (home made is best here if you can)
1 teaspoon Marjoram or (Basil or Oregano or Sage)
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup milk or cream

Dredge the chicken in a little flour you've seasoned with some salt and pepper. No need to go exotic here, unless of course you want to. And in that case if you want to season it with some other herbs, feel free. This is your dish, you can do whatever you want. Saute the chicken until it's browned a little and then remove it from the pan.

Place the chicken aside, then saute the green onions, mushrooms and green pepper for a few minutes until the green pepper softens a little and the mushrooms start to cook.

Put the chicken back in the pan, add the chicken stock and let it cook for 30 minutes or until the chicken is done.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Make a slurry of the flour and milk and add to the pan juices to make a gravy. Cook until it is thickened and then add the chicken back to the pan and let heat through. Serve with noodles or rice or mashed potatoes.