Steamed chicken with mushrooms

In the dish a chicken is steamed with mushrooms and vegetables.  An interesting way to cook a chicken without the use of oils and fats.

Preparation Time: 15 Mins

Cooking Time: 100 Mins

Total Time: 115 Mins

Ingredients

For 6 servings…

1                    Chicken     

230 gms           Mushrooms  - small, flat         

8                    Onions  - mushroom-sized      

1 kg                Carrots  - quartered lengthways

1 faggot           Herbs       

6 stalks            Parsley      

 ml                 Water  - cold           

                     Pepper      

                     Salt          

To serve

                     Potatoes  - steamed   

Method

Cover a pudding plate completely with aluminium foil.  Stand this on a 15 cms diameter cake tin or similar and place all this in a pan deep enough so that a lid can be fitted.  Put the fowl on the plate.

First, however, loosen the bird’s skin by pinching it all over.  Destalk the mushrooms.  Slide one hand between loosened upper skin and flesh and push in the mushrooms - white side uppermost.  Strew the remaining mushrooms, the stalks, onions, carrots, herb bundle and parsley stalks around the pan.  Pour in the water to come to just below the bottom of the plate.  Cover and stand the pan over a strong heat until water comes to the boil.  Then reduce the heat until the water reached a steady simmer and cook for 1½ hours until the bird and the vegetables are cooked.

Remove bird, plate and cake base from the pan.  Set bird on a heated dish and keep warm while removing the carrots and onions from the pan.  Discard the parsley stalks and herb bundle.

Boil up pan liquor furiously for 5 minutes, taste and correct seasoning with salt and pepper.  Surround chicken with the vegetables.  Serve with steamed potatoes and, separately, with a jug of the chicken liquor.

Wine recommendations

A white or light red wine.

Conventional

     Beaujolais

Interesting

     Gamay de Loire

     Mâcon

     Menetou-Salon