Poulet Marengo (Chicken Marengo Style)

This is one of my favourite recipes to cook. It’s absolutely delicious and a HUGE hit for anyone who loves chicken, shrimp and creamy sauces. A good side with this would be mashed potatoes to soak up the sauce, or homemade french fries.

Ingredients for Chicken Marengo:

* 1 large chicken and cut into pieces
* 60 g of butter
* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 40 g flour
* 20 cl chicken broth
* 20 cl dry white wine
* 1 tablespoon brandy
* 2 onions (or shallots for a more complex flavour)
* 1 clove garlic (I like to use the whole bulb but I’m a garlic fiend)
* 6 tomatoes
* 12 mushrooms
* 1 tablespoon chopped parsley (fresh is best, it’s the garnish)
* salt (sea salt is the best)
* white pepper

How to do it

Peel the onions and garlic; chop up the onions into cubes and crush the garlic. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

In a casserole pan, heat butter and oil. Brown chicken pieces until they are well browned on all sides but not fully cooked.

Then add onions and garlic, stir well to done without browning. Add the flour, then simmer and cook while stirring until the flour is lightly coloured. Add the shrimp to the mixture (they’re best with the heads still on), to get a bit of a shrimp-y broth.

Gradually incorporate the chicken broth and white wine and bring to boil, reduce heat and cook in simmering for 30 minutes on medium. But remove the shrimp before when they are fully cooked and place them aside.

Chop the tomatoes (remove the seeds and chop them up roughly)

Clean the mushrooms, rinse in cold water, dry them and chop them up roughly

Add tomatoes and mushrooms in the sauce, season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.

Wait 10 minutes.

Remove the pot from the boiler and skim the soup skin off the top.

Let it sit for another 3 minutes.

Put it back on the boiler on low and add in the chicken pieces and cook until chicken is tender, stirring occasionally to prevent the sauce from attaching to the bottom of the casserole.

10 minutes before the end of cooking, add the brandy.

[OPTIONAL] Once the 10 minutes are done, drain the sauce into a big bowl (removing the mushrooms, tomatoes etc) and place the chicken on the plates, put the shrimp on the plates without the heads, and pour the sauce all over it.

Naturally, you can eat the mushrooms and tomatoes if you want, but you don’t have to = this is another version of the recipe.

Serve very hot and sprinkle with chopped parsley.