Comforting chicken casserole

Last Sunday I decided to try out one of the recipes in the Slow Cooker book I received for Christmas – Chicken Fricassee. It sounded delicious. After following the initial first step of tossing my chicken in seasoned flour and sautéing until brown I realised I didn’t have two of the key ingredients I needed to make this dish but I was determined to make SOMETHING so I worked out what I did have and what I came up with was this amazingly rich and comforting chicken casserole. Afterwards I scribbled down the recipe as I assure you this is one I’ll be making again.

Chicken Casserole

You will need:

2 tbsp olive oil
4 chicken thighs ( the original recipe called for thighs & drumsticks)
3 slices of smoked bacon chopped finely
2 tbsp plain flour, seasoned with salt&pepper
4 shallots, sliced
3 garlic cloves crushed
3 waxy potatoes and 1 sweet potato chopped into very small pieces
115g of sliced mushrooms
2 tsp of finely chopped fresh rosemary
150ml red wine
200ml of hot chicken stock
1 bay leaf
Salt & Pepper

Heat oil in a large pan, toss chicken in seasoned flour and then cook for 8-10 mins until golden brown. Remove and set aside.

Add your bacon and shallots and cook for a few mins stirring occasionally. Add your garlic, mushrooms, potatoes and rosemary and cook for 2 minutes stirring often.

Add your wine and bring to the boil then allow to simmer for 1 minute. Transfer everything to the slow cooker and pour in the stock, add the chicken and bay leaf cover and cook on high for 5 hours.

45 minutes before the end of cooking time use two forks to tear your chicken thighs into smaller pieces – this should be easy as it will be super tender, also at this time if desired add dumplings. These are a wonderful addition to the casserole but it would be perfectly lovely without them.

Serve with dumplings or fresh homemade bread – lots of bread recipes will appear shortly as part of my new challenge. I made soda bread to accompany our casserole.

““This post is part of the #FaveFamilyRecipes Competition with BritMums and Tilda Rice. Every pack sold will provide a meal to an expectant mum in need in support of the World Food Programme’s Mothers Helping Mothers initiative in Bangladesh.”