This is one of those recipes I just lucked out on. I came home at about 7pm to two chicken breasts, a jar of black olives, and a stomach that sounded like a wookie love pit.
I'd heard the word fricassee before, I had no idea what it meant. It was just one of those words you sometimes through out there - "well, you can chop it, fry it, dice it, fricassee it..." - that sort of thing. Like when you're a kid and you threaten to send someone to Timbuktu or Albuquerque without realizing where they are - or even that they were real places. So when I was running through all the things I can do with chicken and the "imaginary" word fricassee popped in my head, I felt a sudden urge - for the first time in my life - to actually look it up.
Fricassee or fricassée /ˈfrɪkəsiː/[1] is a method of cooking meat in which the meat is cut up, sautéed, and braised, and served with its sauce, traditionally a white sauce.
Thanks, Wikipedia. That was very specific. But what the hell - I grabbed my camera to take a few quick pics of the adventure and gave it a shot. If for no other reason than to say, "Yes, I have, in fact, fricasseed a chicken."
Note: I didn't actually fricassee a WHOLE chicken like some of the recipes out there said I should. I just fricasseed a couple of chicken breasts.
In the process I learned two things:
Fricassee should be said at least once a day. It is a wicked fun word.
Fricassee is a delicious, quick and easy, lean meal that can feed 2 - 8 people with minimal effort - and should be made fairly regularly.
Black Olive Chicken Fricassee Ingredients
- 2 large chicken breasts
- ½ pound black Greek-style olives
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves, chopped
- Salt
- Black pepper in a grinder
- ½ cup dry white wine
- 3 tablespoons wine vinegar, preferably white
- 2 tablespoons dried parsley
- 1½ tablespoons dried basil leaves
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1. Place oil in a skillet and put at 3/4 heat
2. Once shimmering, add garlic
3. Cut the chicken breasts in half and rub with salt and pepper
4. Once garlic is fragrant, add the halved chicken breasts using a pair of tongs
5. Cook chicken until browned on one side then flip and brown the other side
6. Add half of the olives to the skillet and cook for two minutes
7. Reduce heat to about half and add the rest of the ingredients to the pan. Cover and let simmer for 20-30 minutes - until the chicken is tender when you poke it with a fork
It's a great, light(ish) meal - I would suggest it with a really, really green salad - like the scallion salad below we had with a balsamic dijon dressing we made with a few of the ingredients we had lying around the house.
Let me know if you give this one a shot, and if you do, share it on my Facebook page - www.facebook.com/cutseveryday!
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