This Chicken Stew is Andrea’s grandmother’s recipe. She told us that this recipe has been in the family for a long time. The Chicken Stew is a white sauce stew enriched with red wine. Andrea said she would add in more red wine at the end of the cooking to have a more intense flavour broth.

Andrea served the Chicken Stew with steamed rice and broccoli. The broth from the Chicken Stew goes very well with steamed rice.

Ingredients

• 1 stewing chicken
• vegetables like onion, tomatoes, cabbage and herbs like parsley, thyme or rosemary for boiling the chicken to make chicken stock
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of cream
• 1 bay leaf
• 10 black peppercorns
• 3 cloves
• salt to taste

Click on the link below for the instructions.

Instructions

Andrea prepared the chicken the day before as it takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to make the broth. Put one stewing chicken in a stock pot. Cover the chicken with water. Add some vegetables (e.g. 1 carrot, 1 onion, 2-3 tomatoes, some white cabbages) and some herbs (e.g. parsley, thyme or rosemary). Bring the water to a boil and lower the heat to simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours. Remove the chicken and strain the broth.

Take off the bones and skin from the cooked chicken and cut into bite-size pieces.

Melt 3 to 4 tablespoons of margarine in a pot. Add the chopped onions and cook briefly, just to soften the onion, not to brown them.

Add in the flour and mix well.

Slowly add in the chicken broth while whisking to prevent the flour mixture from becoming lumps. The addition of the broth to the onion/flour mixture has to be carry out in batches. Make sure that each time you add in more broth, the mixture is whisked thoroughly until there is no lumps before you add more broth.

Add in the bay leaf, black peppercorns, cloves and salt to flavour the broth. Cook the broth for 20 minutes.

Return the cooked chicken pieces.

Add in the red wine. Cook for 5 minutes to cook off the alcohol.

Turn off the stove. Add in 1/4 to 1/2 cup of cream to taste.