Chicken Fricassee with Beans and Vegetables

Name: Chicken Fricassee with Beans and Vegetables in Creamy Sauce
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Chicken drumsticks (thigh fillet) 4; Red beans (dry) 0.5 cup (85 g); Bell pepper 2; Onion 1; Carrot 1; Olive oil 2 tbsp; Salt, ground black pepper, nutmeg to taste; Cream or milk 1 cup (200 ml); Butter 1 tbsp; Flour 1 tbsp (10 g); Salt, ground black pepper, nutmeg to taste

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60 mins

Chicken fricassee is made from a whole chicken or from separate parts, which is even more convenient for cooking by portions.

If you read cookbooks closely, you will notice that most main dishes are made from sliced or chopped ingredients. It is very interesting that many dishes, mostly European ones, are named after the way the ingredients are cut.

Take “julienne”, for example. We know it as mushrooms stewed in a sour cream sauce, but it is really a special way of cutting young vegetables into thin strips, usually in summer for soups and salads. That is how the ingredients for a julienne dish are cut. In fact, many dishes of foreign cuisines that are familiar to us mean quite simple things in translation. The Hungarian bogracs comes from the Hungarian “bogrács”, a cauldron. Pasta in Latin means “dough”. The word cutlet (côtelette) comes from the French côte, meaning a rib.

There is a whole series of dishes, mostly in French cuisine, called fricassee. Fricassée means “a bit of everything”. The word comes from the French verb fricasser, “to fry, to stew”. In essence it is a ragout (a sauté, a roast with gravy) made from white meat. Or rather, that is what it originally was. Today fricassee is a much broader notion.

Fricassee is made from rabbit, chicken, other poultry, lamb, veal and so on. The meat and other ingredients for a fricassee are cut into small pieces of arbitrary shape. The general principle is that the meat is fried and stewed in broth together with the other ingredients, then seasoned with pepper and cream whisked with an egg yolk.

We will make a fricassee from chicken, from chicken wings or from drumsticks. As additions we will take seasonal vegetables and red beans, the ones used for chili, or rather chili con carne (Spanish: chili con carne). I don’t argue that chicken with curry may be much tastier, but try this recipe and you won’t remain indifferent.

Ingredients

2 servings

Chicken drumsticks (thigh fillet) 4
Red beans (dry) 0.5 cup (85 g)
Bell pepper 2
Onion 1
Carrot 1
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Salt, ground black pepper, nutmeg to taste

Cream or milk 1 cup (200 ml)
Butter 1 tbsp
Flour 1 tbsp (10 g)
Salt, ground black pepper, nutmeg to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparation

Chicken fricassee is convenient to make from chicken wings, thighs or drumsticks. Drumsticks are very handy for cooking: just one bone and a lot of meat.

Prepare the drumsticks: thaw them first, remove the skin and cut off the joint together with the protruding bone. You can cook them whole. Or, if you like, cut all the meat off in fairly large pieces.

Boil the previously soaked red beans until done (until they are soft). By the way, you can use canned beans, you just need to drain off all the liquid.
Cut the vegetables: the carrot into small pieces, the onion coarsely, into strips or cubes. Remove the seeds from the bell pepper and cut it into large slices.

Frying and stewing

Fry the carrot: heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the sliced carrot in it for 5 mins.
Add the chicken pieces and fry over high heat until lightly browned. This takes 10-12 mins, stirring from time to time. Then season the chicken with a little salt and pepper.

Add a pinch of nutmeg, the sliced onion and bell pepper, and fry the chicken with the vegetables until the onion and pepper are nicely browned.
Add the prepared red beans, cover with a lid and stew over low heat for 10 mins.
The vegetables will release enough moisture, so there is no need to add liquid to the fricassee. Then remove the lid and let the liquid nearly boil away.

Sauce

Make the béchamel sauce: in a separate pan melt 1 tbsp of butter, fry the flour in it for about 1 min and gradually pour in the cream or milk, stirring. Cook over low heat until the sauce thickens. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.
When the liquid in the chicken fricassee has nearly boiled away, pour the sauce over everything, stir and simmer under the lid over low heat for 3-4 mins.

Serving

Serve the chicken fricassee right away, without delay.
Fricassee is traditionally served with a side of rice. Still, chicken fricassee is a perfectly good dish on its own and goes very well with fresh herbs and toasted bread.

Calories and macros

950 kcal

Serving ≈ 460 g

Protein56 g25% of kcal
Fat60 g60% of kcal
Carbs34 g15% of kcal

100 g208 kcalProtein 12.2 gFat 13.1 gCarbs 7.5 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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Chicken Fricassee with Beans and Vegetables

Ingredients

For the fricassee

For the béchamel sauce