Chicken Chasseur (Hunter-style Chicken)

 Chicken Chasseur was supposed to be served for our Valentine’s dinner, however, that did not happen. I did, however, prepare this amazing dish the next evening along with my favorite smashed potato recipe, steamed asparagus and the cute little heart-shaped creme brûlées for dessert!

I had been cooking SO much prior to Valentine’s Day because it had been so cold and snowy that I just could not drag myself back into the kitchen. (What else does someone like me do when the weather outside is frightful??) And besides that, we had been eating and drinking and drinking and eating, so it was rather difficult to get motivated once again to get in the kitchen. Some days this girl needs a break! 😉

Instead of terrorizing my kitchen yet again and wearing myself out to the point of total exhaustion, I heated up some Boeuf Bourguignon that was in the freezer and we had creme brûlée for dessert on Valentine’s evening. Not too bad, for a last minute Valentine’s Day dinner.

With Boeuf Bourguignon one evening and creme brûlée for dessert, followed by Chicken Chasseur, I am beginning feel like I am on a gluttonous French gastronomical tour. I am waiting for temperatures to rise above 40 degrees on a consistent basis and then I will get back to more reasonable (low-cal) cooking. But of course, that reasonable cooking will have to wait until after my dinner party this week. Wait until you see what dishes I am preparing for that! I need to be running laps just thinking about it! 😉

So back to the chicken…Chicken Chasseur is one of my hubby’s favorites that I make. That is why it was intended for Valentine’s Day. I saw Bobby Flay preparing this dish on a Saturday morning several years ago. He did a show on French classics (my kind of good food). I, of course, made this dish that evening. It has since become a favorite in our home.

The ingredients are easy to source. There are a few steps in preparing the dish, so it is best to have everything chopped and ready to go. You will need a couple of tablespoons of clarified butter to saute the chicken. The recipe also calls for enriched chicken stock. If you do not have your own stock, you can reduce the boxed stuff by half to make enriched stock (I like Imagine Food’s organic chicken broth when I do not use homemade).

The recipe says to cut the chicken in quarters, however, when I watched this show, the chicken was cut into more pieces. We usually cut a chicken into 8 or 10 pieces (10 pieces if the breast is very large). I do serve the chicken on the bone (this recipe says to remove the breast meat from the bone).

The sauce is incredible with the chicken, so be sure to take the time to reduce it properly. Just keep your chicken warm until your sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. It does take some time. You then finish it with a knob of butter and some fresh herbs. Voila!

We served the chicken with a lovely bottle of 1999 Crognolo. Crognolo is a Super Tuscan wine made with the Sangiovese grape. With ten years of aging it struck just the right note. It was phenomenal. This was definitely a bottle that was ready to drink. The cork was fine, but the wine had the potential to not be so good in an other year or two. My hubby took a picture of the cork. Note how far up the cork the wine had penetrated. Had the wine reached the top of the cork, the wine in the bottle would be exposed to air and begin to oxidize. This is just one way a bottle of wine can go bad. On that note, I say, drink up and Bon Appétit!