German Chicken Recipes: Fricassee

By Thom7747

This German chicken recipe is a stewed dish typically made with poultry, but other types of white meat (like veal, rabbit, or Cornish game hen) can be substituted. It is cut into pieces and then stewed in gravy, which is then thickened with butter and cream or milk so it makes a white gravy. I like to add green and white asparagus, mushrooms and sometimes green peas.

Ingredients

• For the Fricassee:
• fresh or frozen chicken (weight 1-3 pounds)
• 1/2 celery root, 2 carrots, 2 celery sticks, 1 leek
• 1 onion
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cloves
• 2 liter purified water
• 100 g butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1 small jar white asparagus, whole or in pieces, 10 thin green asparagus, frozen or jar
• frozen peas (or fresh)
• 2 small cans mushrooms
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 lemon
• 100 ml heavy cream
• salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste
• 1/2 lemon

Details

Adapted from mybestgermanrecipes.com

Preparation

Step 1

Soup:
- wash the chicken, dry it and put it a pan that is big enough for 2-3 liter liquid
- add 2 liter cold water and bring it to a boil.
- cut celery root in cubes, cut carrots in 2-3 pieces.
- add the celery, the root, carrots, bay leaves to the broth.
- cut the onion in 2 pieces, in every piece stick a clove, add it to the soup.
- let it simmer for 1-2 hours or until chicken meat is tender.

Fricassee:
- take the cooked chicken out of the broth, drain it through a a sieve. Keep 1 liter for the fricassee.
- Remove all the nice looking meat from the bones (don’t use the skin, or dark brown pieces); cut bigger pieces into smaller pieces.
- Drain mushrooms and asparagus. If you use frozen asparagus break the frozen asparagus in small pieces.
- Add butter in an extra pan and on reduced heat, mix in the flour while stirring until the flour has a golden yellow color.
The butter should not become brown.
- Very slowly add the chicken broth, first a little bit, then more and more while whisking it. You want to avoid clumping.
- Let it simmer for 10 minutes on low heat while stirring frequently.
- Add chicken meat, asparagus, peas and mushrooms to the sauce.
- Now add the yolk into the milk, and mix it carefully into the fricassee mix.

Important: The sauce should not be boiling hot. Let it cool off a bit before adding the yolk/milk mix, and don’t bring it to a boil again.
- Squeeze the lemon and and add the juice to the sauce. Spice it with salt and pepper and nutmeg to taste. You can also add additional lemon juice if you think it needs more. You should taste the juice a bit.