Chicken and chanterelle fricassee

After a successful forage in the nearby woods, I had a solid liter of fresh chanterelles at my disposal.

Hungry for chicken, I thought I'd make a fricassee. I have plenty of carrots in the garden right now as well as a few kholrabi that needed to be used. On to the food!

The ingredients:



White wine, chicken stock, tarragon, dijon mustard, a chicken, the fresh chanterelles, a few carrots, heavy cream, two kholrabi and two onions.

The chanterelles:



I started by peeling and cutting up the carrots and kholrabi:



These I blanched in salted water for about 5 minutes.

I then cut up the chicken and placed the pieces in a large, deep pan...



... before slicing and adding the onions and spices (thyme, a bay leaf and white peppercorns)...



... and adding stock and white wine to cover:



I brought everything to a gentle boil and poached the chicken for an initial 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, I pulled out the breast pieces.



The rest of the chicken poached for an additional 15 minutes.

I then removed the chicken from the poaching liquid and let the liquid reduce until there were approximately 2 cups left.



After straining the poaching liquid and cleaning my pan, I sauteed the cleaned chanterelles in butter until soft.

Before:



After:



I then made a light roux with some flour and the leftover chanterelle butter (plus a little additional butter).



I then added the strained poaching liquid to the roux...

...

... added a good tablespoon of dijon mustard...



... and about 1/2 cup of cream:



I tasted the sauce and added salt and a few drops of vinegar. When the sauce had come back to a simmer, I added the poached chicken pieces and a few tablespoons of chopped tarragon.



Finally, I added the poached vegetables...



... and the chanterelles:



Ready to serve:



I served the fricassee with a tomato salad and orzo that I had flavored with a pinch of fresh rosemary, some lemon zest and a handful of parmesan.

Beautiful, delicious-looking stuff, as usual, Jonathan. I always learn a lot when I read your cooking pictorials and I appreciate you taking the time to create them for us.

Just out of curiosity, how long is your wild chanterelle 'season?' Is it just beginning now?

=R=

Thanks Ron!

Depending on the summer, it reaches from perhaps July until September.

I'm going to guess that this year culminated about 2 weeks ago. Cool, sunny and rainy, the spring and summer have been a perfect build-up for chanterelles this year. I was overhearing people complaining about the amounts they were finding! Seems strange but cleaning 10-15 quarts of chanterelles can be a big pain. Of course, simply leaving them unpicked is an impossibility!

However, the fact that the winter chanterelle season hasn't even begun does act somewhat as an ointment for the pain of saying goodbye to the summer chanterelles.

#zz*new Bridgestone post happy dance*zz#

I saw all of these ingredients at the Evanston Farmer's market two weeks ago...I'm assuming they're still there; I may take a whack at this if the weather continues to be cool. Looks delicioius, as always!