I can’t believe I’m cooking a stew again already. Admittedly, this is a light, trans-seasonal chicken and herb stew in a creamy mustard sauce that calls for a pinot noir rather than a full-bodied cabernet sauvignon, but still, it’s a stew for indoors, not a salad for outdoors.
Looking back over the 2004 summer season, all I can see is a blur of fresh, colourful meals: ripe tomato salads drizzled with tahini (sesame paste), barbecued mackerel and sardines served with Greek salads and beetroot, lemony crab tossed through fine pasta, Thai salads of coriander and chicken, ripe peaches with raspberry coulis, and gooey messes of strawberries and cream. Bliss, bliss, bliss.
All is not yet lost. Now it is time to relish, while we can, the last of the season’s tomatoes, late-ripening stone fruits, corn on the cob, delicate herbs such as chervil and coriander, fleshy figs, and those particularly small round grapes that are so good at the moment.
Autumn will bring its own pleasures, of course, changing the nature of our cooking with wild chanterelle mushrooms, full-hearted cabbages, baby leeks and small game birds to wrap in bacon and roast alongside sweet root vegetables. Just the sort of food to help us enjoy the scudding clouds, bracing winds and refreshing rain. As John Ruskin said, there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
Ingredients
Serves 4
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 60 min
(serve with mashed or small boiled potatoes)
2 carrots, peeled
2 celery stalks
2 spring onions
8 medium chicken thighs
2tbsp flour
Sea salt and pepper
1tbsp butter
1tbsp olive oil
1 onion, halved and sliced
400ml chicken or vegetable stock
4 leaves or sprigs of sage, tarragon and thyme, and 2 bay leaves
2tsp Dijon mustard
2tbsp crème fraîche
1tbsp finely chopped parsley
METHOD: Finely slice the carrots and celery and cut the spring onions into 2cm lengths. Toss the chicken thighs in flour, salt and pepper. Heat the butter and oil in a large frying pan and brown the chicken on all sides. Remove and drain off excess fat.
Add the onion and cook gently for 5 mins, then add the carrots, celery and spring onions, stirring well for another 5 mins. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil.
Return the chicken to the pan with the herbs and bay leaves and simmer, partly covered, for 30 to 40 mins, turning the chicken once or twice. Skim any fat from the top. Add the mustard, crème fraîche and parsley, stirring well. Simmer for 5 mins and serve.
Simple chicken and herb stew
The seasons, they are a-changing