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Chicken blanquette

A pale, creamy stew from one pot of poaching liquid

Medium20 min hands-on · 1 hr totalServes 2
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Two bowls of chicken blanquette with tender chicken and small pieces of carrot in a pale, glossy cream sauce.

Halves for one by using a smaller pan and about two-thirds of the stock, enough to keep the chicken covered while it poaches.

Blanquette is a stew that has decided to stay pale on purpose: no browning, no colour built up in the pan, everything poached gently so the finished sauce comes out the colour of thin cream. Chicken thigh and carrot cook together in a pot of stock until both are tender, and that same poaching liquid becomes the sauce, thickened with a butter and flour roux, then finished with cream and an egg yolk whisked in off the heat so it turns silky rather than curdling. Classic versions add small pickling onions and whole mushrooms. Both are left out here, since the strands and skins in each are exactly what causes trouble further down. What is left is still a proper Sunday dish, spooned from a shallow bowl, made almost entirely by a pot doing quiet work on the hob.

Suits after surgery, a narrowed bowel, chemotherapy diarrhoea, a new stoma, during pelvic radiotherapy, after a low anterior resection

Tags High protein · Easily fortified

Ingredients

Contains: Gluten, Milk, Egg, Celery

  • 3chicken thigh fillets, about 130 g each, skin removed, cut into large chunks
  • 500 mlclear chicken stock, home-made and strained, or a good stock cube
  • 2carrots, peeled and cut into 1 cm dice
  • 35 gunsalted butter
  • 35 gplain white flour
  • 100 mldouble cream
  • 2egg yolks
  • salt

Method

  1. Put the chicken, stock and carrot in a wide pan. Bring to a bare simmer, skimming off any foam that rises, and cook gently for 20 to 25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the carrot is fully soft.

  2. Lift the chicken and carrot out onto a plate and keep warm. Pour the poaching liquid through a fine sieve into a jug, so nothing but clear liquid goes back into the pan.

    The sieve is what keeps the sauce properly smooth, in case any small pieces have come off the chicken or carrot while they poached.

  3. Melt the butter in the same pan over a low heat, stir in the flour and cook for a minute, stirring, to lose the raw taste. Gradually whisk in the strained poaching liquid, a splash at a time, until you have a smooth sauce, then simmer for 5 minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon.

  4. In a small bowl, whisk the cream and egg yolks together. Whisk a ladleful of the hot sauce into the cream mixture to warm it through, then pour it all back into the pan off the heat, whisking constantly, until the sauce turns pale and silky.

    Do not let it boil once the egg yolk is in, or the sauce will split rather than thicken smoothly.

  5. Return the chicken and carrot to the pan and warm through gently over a low heat for a couple of minutes, until the sauce steams and thickens a little more, without ever letting it boil. Taste and season with salt.

  6. Divide between two warm shallow bowls. The sauce should sit around the chicken rather than run away from it.

Watch-points

  • Use a clear, strained stock to poach the chicken. If it is home-made, pour it through a sieve before you start.
  • Peel the carrot and cut it small before it goes in, then cook it until a fork meets no resistance anywhere in a piece.
  • Strain the poaching liquid through a sieve before you thicken it, so no stray fibre or bone fragment gets into the sauce.
  • Temper the egg yolk and cream off the heat, whisking in a ladle of the hot sauce first, so it thickens the sauce rather than scrambling.
  • The egg yolk cooks in the heat of the sauce. Keep the pan steaming for a couple of minutes after it goes in, and take it off the heat before it boils.
  • The classic pearl onions and whole mushrooms are left out here entirely. Both sit off the list for this diet.

Make it more nourishing

  • Use 150 ml of cream instead of 100 ml. It makes the sauce richer without changing the method.
  • Stir a tablespoon of skimmed milk powder into the sauce as it thickens. It adds protein without adding anything to the volume of the bowl.
  • Add a third egg yolk to the tempering. More richness, the same silky finish.

Swaps

Instead of chicken thigh, use chicken breast, cut into large chunks
leaner, and equally tender if you do not let it overcook
Instead of double cream, use crème fraîche stirred in off the heat
a sharper, lighter finish
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