Whisk Wednesdays—Fricassée de Poulet à l'ail et à la Sauge (Chicken Fricassée with Garlic and Sage)

"Eh, What's up Doc?'

We're making comfort food. A fricassée (pronounced 'frik-a-see' by English-speaking people or 'frik-a-say' by French-speaking people) makes me think of an Alsatian grandmère in a farm kitchen cutting her chicken, fresh from the coop, into pieces with a sturdy knife while her petite-fille watches on a stool next to her ready to help. Although there's not much to help with in this recipe.

Fricassée is lighter than a stew and perfect for Spring. It turns out Abraham Lincoln loved chicken fricassée, and I'm a fan now too.

After cutting up the chicken, you sauté the meat in olive oil and brown the meat on both sides. Then, add the garlic (without bothering to peel them as I did) and let the garlic soften a bit. Sprinkle everything with salt, pepper and sliced sage and add the wine. The wine helps deglaze the pan and scrape up all the tasty bits stuck to the pan. Let the wine come to the boil and then throw it in a 400˚F oven to stew for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, cover for another 15-20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Strain the sauce, making sure to push all the softened garlic through the strainer (leaving the garlic peels behind), and reduce by half.

Recipe

Serves 6

4 ½-pound chicken
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
20 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 bunch fresh sage, sliced fine
1 cup dry white wine
You can find the recipe for Fricassée de Poulet à l'ail et à la Sauge (Chicken Fricassee with Garlic and Sage) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
Easy. Delicious. Economical. The chicken was so tender; the sauce, thick and garlicky after being reduced, easily coated the pieces. After feeding the camera, I grabbed a piece with my fingers and hungrily ate a breast with my hands, licking my fingers at the end. It was by far the best chicken I've ever had. The recipe contains only six ingredients and used only one pot, so it's not only tasty but easy on the dishwasher too!

"Let's start the fire and fricassée him." — Bugs Bunny in Rabbit's Kin (1952)

Next Class
We're taking a "Spring Break" next week. We'll be back the following week with Cailles à la Normande (Quail with Cream and Apples) pages 212-213. {You can substitute Partridge if you like.}

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Running total: $1,129.99 + $6.75 (chicken) + $6.04 (other ingredients) = $1,142.78
($2.13 per serving)

Butter used so far: 9 pounds, 22 tablespoons

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::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.