We love watching Cook’s Illustrated’s show America’s Test Kitchen. Their tips are almost always dead-on accurate and their recipes are simple and work. That’s why when I reproduced their recent recipe for French Chicken in a Pot, I was disappointed that it resulted in an over-cooked chicken. Following their cooking time by weight, it suggested checking the chicken at 80 minutes, at which point the bird was way over-done. There was plenty of fond and juice to make a jus, but the bird itself was dry. We ate it anyway, but weren’t happy. This was the first time I had over-cooked a chicken in years, usually I undercook 🙂
Anyway, their technique for jus works wonderfully. We also added two other aspects to the recipe. First, after separating the fat and chicken juices, we poured some of the chicken fat into Baby Chinese Broccoli along with garlic to make a veggie side. We also took the garlic pieces from the pot and mashed them into the jus, yum! Finally, after removing the rosemary and bay leaves from the pot, we added some pre-cooked cous cous, and sauteed it in the remaining fond and veggies and had a wonderful carb. Actually, the cous cous was the best part of the meal!
So, in the end, the flavors are great, and there are lots of ideas for what you can do with this meal, but be careful with your chicken if you follow the recipe.
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I made this 3 times by now, the first two were right on – amazingly tender chicken, with around 100 minutes cooking time. The third one (which I made 2 days ago) I cooked for 80 minutes, but it turned out undercooked and tougher than the first two. I think this could be due to either (1) the chicken itself – this one was from Trader Joe’s, whereas the first two were from either WF or Sam’s club, or (2) because I added paprika to the rub and didn’t have any garlic on hand. (I used both a LeCreuset pot and a “generic” with about the same success, so I know it’s not the pot!)
So I’d say give it another try with 80 minutes, maybe with a different chicken brand. Or maybe it’s something with your oven temp (although sounds like you would have noticed by now :)?
I do love your veggie and couscous ideas 🙂 Maybe I’ll use the left-over au jus tonight to cook some veggies.
MK, our chicken was from BJ’s, which I think is like the Costco’s chicken. We used a LeCreuset pot and we have an oven thermometer (which I always watch closely).
I don’t think your paprika will make a difference, but it seems like a weak recipe if it only works some of the time.