Chicken Basque Style : Poulet Sauté Basquaise : Lesson 10 : Part 1 : LCB at Home

As previously mentioned, this one's an old favorite. Also great for pot-luck suppers, keeps well, good cold, reheats alright, not pricey - all the characteristics of a regular family dish. Make it often.

The plating is, bottom-up: fried prosciutto (Italian air dried ham - should have been Iberian ham but that's hard to find). The vegetable mix (green peppers, onions, tomato), the sautéed chicken, topped with the reduced cooking liquid (essentially a tomato/green-pepper sauce).

We had a large free range chicken and cut it in 8 pieces but the breast portions were in fact oversized (not necessarily a bad thing) meaning that they took longer to cook than the other pieces.

So anyways... what I actually did was:

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Poulet Sauté Basquaise : Chicken Basque Style

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 2,25 kg chicken [5 #] cut neatly in 8 pieces (8 if you keep the little wings - I did)
• salt
• pepper, white, freshly ground
• olive oil
• 1 T butter (helps the browning apparently)
  
  
• 2 onions, medium, julienne [fine slices]
• 6 green peppers, large, julienne (½ kg [¼ #]) (a length similar to the onions please)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed


• 1 C stock, approx
• ¼ kg tomatoes [3 big ones] peeled, seeded, brunoise [diced] (I used a can due to the current tomato/salmonella scare)
• 1 bouquet garnis [herb packet] (celery, thyme, parsley, bayleaf, whole peppercorns)
  
  
• 150 gr very good ham, dry cured, slices [5 oz]

Procedure

1. If you have a whole chicken… cut it up; salt & pepper the pieces
2. Oil into a pan, medium high; fry pieces really well - more than you usually do. You want these good and brown. Fry the larger pieces longer so they'll be pre-cooked more
3. Meanwhile
   • Crush the garlic
   • Devein, deseed and julienne the green peppers
   • Julienne, very finely, the onions
     
     
4. Remove browned chicken from the pan; put in the veggies & garlic, stir
   • Maybe add some oil if there doesn't seem to be enough chicken fat
5. Cover, cook on medium-low until they're soft but not browned, stirring occasionally
6. Add back the chicken pieces and their juices
7. Add tomatoes, bouquet garnis and stock (to just cover)
8. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Cover the pan and simmer until done/tender (about a half hour or, perhaps, 30 minutes)
   
   
9. Remove chicken again and, separately, pretty much all the vegetables. Toss the bouquet garnis out
10. Meanwhile, a little oil into a pan and fry the slices of ham slightly (this is not bacon we're talking about)
11. Reduce the chicken cooking liquid until it's saucey; coating the back of a spoon
    
    
12. Place the ham slices neatly on a plate (around the edge, maybe), arrange the vegetables inside that, top with the chicken, and pour sauce over the whole lot

Done

Notes

1. As always, these recipes are sourced from my copy of - Le Cordon Bleu: At Home

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