French Chicken and Potato Casserole

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I lived and went to school in France—in Nice to be precise—for a number of years in my youth. My mother, who was a Cordon Bleu trained chef, hated cooking but loved Michelin-starred restaurants. She had a passion for a version of this dish. She was also, how shall I put it tactfully, a tad on the plump side and the ample cream in the traditional version of this recipe may have had something to do with it.

It was in Nice, at the age of 12, that I became the family cook—I still am since Alicia has an aversion to cooking. The pleasure of cooking is not just in what you do in the kitchen, but it’s also in the selection and purchase of ingredients. I love grocery shopping, I adore well-stocked supermarkets and I am a great fan of Paddy’s fruit and vegetable market and the fish market in Sydney. They’re like the markets that once thrived in Nice (and maybe in some places in France still do).

But mostly the fun of cooking is in the creativity of it and in preparing meals for someone you love.

Today’s recipe is an adaption of one that was served in mother’s favorite little one-star eatery near the Place Massena—since long gone. The original was loaded with calories—as most French dishes were before Nouvelle Cuisine made most French dishes pointless.

I have reimagined it, keeping the flavor and stripping out the calories. It’s essentially a chicken dish and it’s one of the few that I prepare that can’t easily be made vegan or vegetarian. Sorry about that.

The original recipe called for mushrooms and bacon. Alicia doesn’t like mushrooms that much and both of us have a deep aversion to eating something as intelligent as a pig. Vegetarian “bacon” tastes awful. Substituting tomato and capsicum for mushrooms worked beautifully.

Alicia declared that this is one of her favorites so far. That’s necessary praise as recipes that she doesn’t favor don’t get into TR.

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Ingredients

• 750 gms (26 oz) chicken breasts cut into fairly large pieces (you can substitute chicken thighs but they’re less healthy
• 1/4 cup corn flour (or plain flour, but I prefer the corn version)
• 1 tblsp olive oil
• 20 gms light canola or olive oil-based margarine
• 3 spring onions cut into small pieces
• 1 large brown onion, chopped
• 1 medium carrot chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 small red capsicum sliced and 1 large tomato diced or 150g button mushrooms quartered
• 1 tblsp crushed garlic
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (red wine also works—Merlot of course!)
• 1 cup chicken style low-salt liquid stock
• 2 medium potatoes quartered
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/2 cup fat-free natural yoghurt
• A couple of pinches of chopped parsley for show

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‍Directions:

1. Thoroughly coat the chicken in flour, shake off the excess. Heat oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over high heat and cook the chicken, for 5 minutes or until browned all over. Put aside.
2. Drain any oil from pan. Add the margarine to the pan and heat over a medium flame. Cook the spring onions and carrot and bacon, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the tomato, capsicum (or mushrooms) and garlic. Cook for 3-4 minutes until the capsicum is a bit soft. Add the wine and bring the mixture to the boil. Add the stock and potatoes, and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.
3. Add the chicken and thyme and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.
4. Add the yoghurt and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until chicken is tender, and the sauce has thickened slightly.
5. Sprinkle some parsley over it and serve.

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‍Serves: 6

‍Energy: 1316 kJs (329 calories) per serve