Jamie
The Cookery of England by Elizabeth Aryton was purchased at a Lifeline Book Fair.
To be honest, some recipes in this book have been used in the past and it will definitely be kept in the cook book library but this time it was decided to try something different.
After rejecting a number of possibilities (making a raised pie did not fit with my plans for the day) we settled on Chicken in Brandy Wine. This looked like a chicken and white wine version of Beef bourguignon as it has white wine, mushrooms and onions and also reminded me of Coq au Vin.
Unfortunately there were no Chicken Maryland available at the local supermarket and buying a whole chicken and cutting it up is not a fun way of spending the day. Instead breast, thigh, wing and drumstick were used. Eschalots, which were easier to find than the very small onions required, were used.
It seemed quite normal to cut up and cook the bacon and onions first and then add the other ingredients. I enjoyed the aroma of them cooking in the combination of butter and grapeseed oil.
The recipe is quite easy to follow, except, of course, we don’t have a cooktop to oven to table dish large enough for the quantity of ingredients. Instead, the ingredients were browned in a conventional pan and later transferred into the oven dish.
Burning brandy is always fun and something which should be shared. Unfortunately I was alone and had to take time to believe it was not done simply in the name of pyromania but was part of the recipe. The smell as the brandy hit the bacon, chicken etc made me wish the cooking time was shorter.
After adding the stock and white wine, the bottom of the pan was scaped thoroughly before the ingredients were moved after making certain all those lovely bits that were stuck to the bottom were incorporated into the sauce.
After some discussion this dish was accompanied by an old favourite: Moroccan seasoned cauliflower but no rice or potato. If you decide to make this dish my advice is yes to the cauliflower and double yes to the rice, pasta or potato.
The sauce was wonderful. The recipe does not lie about that in the least. Unfortunately the chicken breast did not absorb the flavour as well as the thigh and drumstick. The mingling of brandy, bacon, onion, chicken, stock etc were delectable and we hurriedly added bread to the table in order to sop up the sauce.
I would use more mushrooms as they were tiny and we all counted to make sure each of us had the 6 mushrooms allocated.
Reject/Remain:
As mentioned previously this book was in no danger of being removed. We did enjoy the taste of the sauce but next time a different cut of chicken or cutting the pieces smaller may be employed to make certain more of the flavour is absorbed.
One added benefit: I now know the meaning of Brandy Wine.
We cleaned the plate. Yum.
Clean the Plate 