Creamy chicken and white wine casserole
Wine cooked right down, cream at the end, everything soft enough for a fork
Doubles in a wider casserole. Give the vegetables a few extra minutes to cook through evenly. Freezes well without the cream, added fresh on reheating.
Chicken thigh browns first, then the potato and carrot go into the same butter, and a splash of white wine bubbles away to almost nothing before the stock goes in behind it. What is left of the wine by the time the cream arrives is flavour rather than alcohol, provided you give it a hard few minutes rather than a polite one. The vegetables are the part worth attention. Cut small and left under the lid for the full time, they collapse to no resistance at all against a fork, which is what makes a casserole like this work here rather than merely taste good. The potatoes cook in the sauce rather than alongside it, which is why the sauce ends up tasting of more than cream.
Ingredients
Contains: Milk, Sulphites, Celery
- 30 gunsalted butter
- 350 gchicken thigh fillets, skin removed, cut into 2 cm pieces
- 300 gpotato, peeled and cut into 1.5 cm dice
- 200 gcarrot, peeled and cut into 1.5 cm dice
- 100 mlwhite wine
- 250 mlclear chicken stock, strained, or a good stock cube
- 100 mldouble cream
- salt
Method
Melt the butter in a large, deep sauté pan or shallow casserole over a medium heat. Brown the chicken pieces for 4 to 5 minutes, turning, until golden on all sides. They do not need to be cooked through yet. Remove to a plate.
Add the potato and carrot to the same pan and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring. Pour in the wine, bring to the boil and let it bubble hard for 2 to 3 minutes, until it has mostly evaporated and no longer smells sharply of alcohol.
Return the chicken and any juices to the pan, pour in the stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook on a low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, until the potato and carrot are completely soft and the chicken is cooked through.
Stir in the cream and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon. Season with salt.
Serve straight from the pan.
Watch-points
- Dice the potato and carrot small and cook them until a fork meets no resistance. Anything less and the carrot stays fibrous.
- Let the wine bubble hard for a few minutes before the stock goes in, so the alcohol cooks off and only the flavour is left.
- Use a stock that is clear and strained, with no vegetable pieces in it.
- Cut the chicken into 2 cm pieces and braise it until it pulls apart under a fork. Whole pieces of meat are the thing obstruction advice warns about.
- Cool leftovers quickly, keep them covered in the fridge and eat them within two days, or one day if you are having chemotherapy. Reheat until it is piping hot right through.
Stoma note: The potato here thickens stoma output gently, which is useful on a looser day.
Make it more nourishing
- Stir an extra 50 ml of double cream into the sauce at the end.
- Add 1 tablespoon of skimmed milk powder to the stock before it goes in. You will not taste it.
- Use 500 g of chicken instead of 350 for a heartier bowl with no extra sauce.
Swaps
- Instead of white wine, use an extra 100 ml of stock and a squeeze of lemon juice
- keeps the acidity without the wine, useful if you are avoiding alcohol entirely
- Instead of double cream, use crème fraîche
- a slightly sharper sauce that still turns silky