ROASTED TARRAGON CHICKEN WITH TARRAGON CREAM GRAVY

 

Wonderful tarragon, a fresh liquorice flavour that goes perfect with chicken and cream, easy to grown and is a perennial plant so once you plant it you will have tarragon every year.

 

Seared chicken ready for a spell in the oven, I poured in some chicken stock and a good glass of dry white wine for the chicken to baste in while she roasts and gives up all her flavour into the cooking juices, this will give you the stock for the base of the fabulous tarragon cream gravy.  This way of roasting a chicken is fantastic, as the chicken roasts, the steam from all the stock and cooking juices keeps the chicken moist and succulent.

 

THE GRAVY, I always feel like a drum roll when I finish and serve the gravy, I love all the cooking juices being poured back over the meat and on my plate.  This is such a simple gravy to make, I took the cooking juices and stirred in a little roux, then once slightly thickened, enough to coat the back of a spoon, I added a dollop of double cream and the tarragon, then seasoned with salt and pepper.

 

(serves 4)

Ingredients
1.5kg  large organic free range chicken
1 onion sliced
1 stick celery chopped
2 cloves of garlic crushed
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
500ml chicken stock
200ml dry white wine
150ml double cream
Salt and black pepper
2 tbsp tarragon leaves
1 tbsp flour

Pre heat your oven to 200 degrees, heat the ooil and one tbsp of butter in a deep pan and gently soften the onions and celery, after 5 minutes add the crushed garlic for a couple of minutes, remove from the pan and keep to one side, add a glug more of oil and crank up the heat to have a hot pan, sear the chicken on all sides till you have a lovely browned skin, take off the heat add the onions, stock and wine to the pan and place the lid on and place into your pre heated oven for approx 45 minutes.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the cooking juices and place on a plate and cover in tin foil and then lay a clean tea towel over to keep the heat in, meanwhile sieve the cooking juices and return back to the pan, if there is a lot of chicken fat floating on top of the chicken juices skim off and use that instead of the butter, add the flour to make a roux, it has to be 50/50 quantities of flour to fat, for this recipe one tbsp of each.  Add the roux to the cooking juices and whisk in until incorporated and simmer for a couple of minutes to slightly thicken the stock, add the cream and tarragon then whisk in, taste and season with black pepper and salt if your sauce needs it. 

I love to serve this gorgeous roasted chicken with boiled potatoes seasoned and tossed in butter and some pan seared and steamed sweetheart cabbage quarters and lots of the creamy tarragon gravy.