From France with love, yes you read that right! Chicken Ragout is a dish that origins from France which you will love when you taste it! This recipe is one of the first ones my mom taught me to cook. It’s requires a little bit of skill as you will have to make a roux, but I will be here to guide you, in case you never made a roux before.
Since you only need a few ingredients, it will be a quick run in the supermarket before you are back in your kitchen, getting into French delights…
Ingredients that serve 4:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 250 grams of white mushrooms
- 2 chicken stock cubes
- a stick of vegetable butter (50grams)
- flour to make the roux
- pre-made pastry
- freshly coarse pepper
- a touch of nutmeg
- 1.5l water
- chives for garnish optional
Directions:
1. Put your chicken breasts in a deep pan with water and add the two chicken stock cubes. Slice your mushrooms and add them to the pot as well. Turn on that high flame, let’s get that water to a boil!
2. Let it boil for 15 to 20 minutes, your chicken will be poached, the mushrooms are done and took in all those yummy flavours. But don’t throw away the water!!! This will become an important part to the base of your ragout. Take the chicken out and grab two forks so you can pull the chicken apart into small strings of chicken and set aside.
3. Get your mushrooms out of the stock and set aside as well. Now grab a pot with a non-stick layer, your butter and flour.
4. Turn on a tiny low flame so nothing will burn and put in the stick of butter. Don’t use full-cream butter, it will mess up the taste in your dish, believe me, I made this mistake once! Stick with vegetable butter and don’t let it turn brown in the slightest way, it will also ruin the taste.
5. When your butter is melted, toss in a spoon of flour and stir like your life depends on it. You don’t want chunks in there. Repeat this process until you can press it together like a ball. It has to look a bit like this:
6. Add a ladle of chicken stock you have left in that pot and stir vigorously so you wont get lumps, use a whisk if you have one. Keep adding stock and stir like a maniac. When it looks like this, stop adding stock and turn off the heat:
7. Toss in the chicken and mushrooms you have set aside before. Stir, add pepper, salt to taste, and a touch of nutmeg. Keep tasting until you have reached perfection. Do you taste that creaminess as well? You did that, yes!
8. Heat up your oven until it reaches 220 degrees celsius and let your pastries sit in there for 5 minutes. Take them out, take of the ‘hat’ of the pastry and fill it with the delicious ragout you made. Garnish with chives to impress your guests and bon appétit!
