CHICKEN AND BISCUITS

This recipe is sooooo darn good I am going to have to limit how often I can eat it!  It's what I call comforting spoon food, with a new twist on what my family call Chicken al la King this is a gorgeous flavour layered chicken casserole with white wine and cream, topped with buttery flakey melt in the mouth biscuits, what's better than that!  

Prep time 20 minutes / Cooking time 1 hour

Ingredients 

(Serves 6)

6 chicken breasts skin on

2 whole carrots

1 onion halved

3 cloves garlic bashed

1 bay leaf

Olive oil

50g butter

2 tbsp plain flour

1 onion finely chopped

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1 leek finely chopped

100ml white wine

3 carrots roughly chopped

2 cups peas

150ml double cream

1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

1 pinch sea salt

1 pinch black pepper

The Biscuits 

2 cups plain flour

114g butter grated

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

3/4 cup full fat milk

1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

Pre heat your oven to 200 C / 385 F, toss the chicken breasts in olive oil, season with sea salt and pepper, in a roasting tray place the whole carrots, halved onions, bashed garlic and bay leaf, load the chicken skin side up on top, pour in around a 2 litres of water to cover the vegetables and the base of the chicken breasts but not the chicken skin, this you want to bake crackling crispy, bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

Next while the chicken is cooking and making the stock make the biscuits, place the flour, grated butter, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl and using your finger tips rub to a chunky gravel add the parsley and milk, bring together to form a rough dough ball, turn out on a floured work top roll out to around an inch thick cut in to 2" circles, brush the tops with the beaten egg wash, leave to one side, meanwhile...

In a skillet make the roux base for the chicken stock sauce, melt the butter, add a good glug of olive oil along with the finely chopped onion, garlic and leek, gently soften for 10 minutes, then add the white wine and de glaze the pan until almost all of the wine has evaporated, add the flour and stir in, turn the heat down really low and gently cook out the flour for 5 minutes.  This is now ready to take the chicken stock...

Remove the roasting tray with the chicken from the oven, take out the chicken, remove the skin and place the skin back in to the chicken cooking stock, reserving the breast meat on one side roughly chopped.  Pop the roasting tray back in the oven for 5 minutes to infuse all the roasted crispy crackling skin flavour in to your cooking stock, this is adding a whole other level of flavour to your stew.  Once infused drain the chicken stock off from the roasting tray and discard the stock vegetables,  add a ladle at a time to your roux stirring to incorporate each time until all the stock is used add the cream and parsley stir in, check for seasoning and season with sea salt and white black pepper to taste.

In your roasting tray place the roughly chopped carrots, chicken, peas and roux stock base, assemble the biscuits on top of the stew and place in the oven to bake for 20-25 minutes until light golden and brown.  That's it serve and enjoy.