Chicken fricassee with vinegar and herbs

For this week, I decided to cook an entire meal.  There was a nice chicken recipe that I had seen in Simple French Cookery by Raymond Blanc.  When we lived in London, he owned a chain of french bakeries there called Maison Blanc.  He also came out with a few cookbooks and this is one I picked up.  This was a pretty straight forward recipe.  With French cooking, the modern cookbooks always try to save time by combining things or skipping steps.  This one seemed to be a happy medium.

 Here's what you'll need:

• 4 organic chicken drumsticks and thighs
• 1 tablesppon olive oil
• 5 tablespoons red wine vinegar (I ran out, so used Balsamic vinegar instead)
• 1/2 oz unsalted butter
• 3 1/2 fl. oz. white wine.  (I picked up a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc).
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled, but left whole
• 1 ripe medium tomato, finely chopped
• 2 sprigs fresh tarragon chopped (couldn't find any, so used dried)
• 1 tablesppon fresh parsley (didn't buy any, so used dry)
• sea salt and freshl ground black pepper.

For the sauteed potatoes:

• 4 medium potatoes diced into 3/4" pieces
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 oz unsalted butter
• fresh parsley (guess what I used)
• 1/2 shallot, finely chopped.  (forgot to buy it, so used a pearl onion instead)
• seas salt and freshly ground black pepper.

 I also picked up some green beans.  Nothing exciting, just steamed them and added some butter.

Start off by salt and peppering the chiken then browning it a large dutch oven for about 5 minutes.  I have a wonderful Le Creuset dutch oven  that's perfect for this job.  Oh, turn the oven onto 300 degrees to start heating it up.  Once the chicken's brown, (there will be a lot of oil if it's a good quality chicken) scoop out as much of the oil as you can, then add the vinegar and butter.  Let it boil and and wait for it to reduce a bit.    

Practice your knife skills and dice the tomato or use a mini-chopper.  I was being lazy so just hacked the tomato.  I love the gadget, but if i'm not chopping multiple items, a knife is just quicker.

Once that's done, add the white wine, let it boil for a bit, then add the tomatoes, garlic and tarragon. 

Cover the pot and transfer to the oven (the oven should now be at 300 degrees) and let it cook for 30 minutes.

While this is cooking, in a large frying pan (once again I love Le Creuset), heat up the olive oil and add the potatoes.  Fry them for 20 minutes turning them over every so often.  You want to get as many sides brown as possible (very difficult with six sides I have to say).  Season with salt and pepper.

Now that you have the potatoes cooking, start steaming the green beans in a regular pan of boiling water with a Steamer.  Ours is falling apart a bit with some of the metal leaves missing, but it does the job.  The string beans should be ready in about 7 minutes.

After 30 minutes are up, remove the dutch oven and season to taste.  Skim any fat from the surface and lay out the food in seperate platters.  You can serve it everyone, (chicken on top of potatoes with sauce and greenbeans on the side), or let them pick and choose.  My daughters mainly ate the potatoes (look daddy, square french fries!)

Bon Appetit!