Dutch Oven Chicken aka Chicken a la Stasi
Provided by Lady Anastasia de Carrera
Ingredients:
1. Dried beef
2. Chicken, boneless breasts are nice, but bone-in legs and thighs are good and messy
(enough pieces to line the bottom of your Dutch Oven)
3. Bacon
4. Seasonings of your choice for the chicken (I'm kind of partial to Greek seasoning)
5. Sour Cream-16 oz container
6. 2 10 oz cans of cream of something soup (I like the Golden Mushroom)
Equipment:
1. Dutch Oven (the kind with legs on the bottom and a rimmed lid works best for the charcoal)
2. Foil or foil casserole pan (optional if you really like to clean messy cast iron)
Charcoal
Season your chicken pieces then wrap each piece with a strip of bacon (or half strip if you are running short and the store is closed or too far away) If you are making this ahead of time and you started with fresh chicken, you can easily freeze the chicken at this point. I like to freeze them individually then package them, it makes handling them much easier if they aren't quite thawed when you want to use them.
Line your Dutch Oven with foil, place a layer of dried beef in the bottom, then add a layer of your seasoned chicken. Mix together the sour cream and soup and poor over the chicken.
Place 17 pieces of charcoal under the Dutch Oven and 11 pieces on the lid, let cook for one hour and you will have a pot full of chicken and gravy. I have tried adding dried potato slices to this dish, it worked ok but fresh may have worked better, not quite as dry. You also have to allow for more cooking time.
Serving suggestions with this chicken:
1. Noodles of potatoes (you have plenty of gravy to poor over)
2. Veggie (I like glazed carrots)
3. Fresh bread (again, you need something to sop up all that good gravy)
Potage from Meat (from Plantina book 7)
Contributed by Lady Kaie Tor of Blakewood
- This recipe is from Cariadoc’s Miscellany…our favorite supper at Lilies. I prepare as much of this ahead of time as I can and freeze it. Then I add the fresh herbs, water, breadcrumbs and cheese on site. I have made it with dried herbs but the fresh mint is so much better! (I go heavier on the mint because we like it that way.) My family prefers to sprinkle the cheese on their individual servings. It tends to get very sticky if the cheese is cooked in with the stew.
Ingredients:
1. 2 1/3 lb stew beef
2. 4 c water
3. “Rich juice”: 31 oz (3 cans) concentrated beef broth
4. 1 1/2 c dry bread crumbs
5. 3/4 t pepper
6. 8 threads saffron
7. 5 eggs
8. 1 1/2 c grated cheese (~ 7 oz)
9. 3/8 c chopped parsley
10. 3/4 t dried or 1 t fresh marjoram
11. 1 1/2 T chopped fresh mint
12. Verjuice: 3 T wine vinegar
13. 1 t salt (to taste)
Take lean meat and let it boil, then cut it up finely and cook it again for half an hour in rich juice, having first added crumbs. Add a little pepper and saffron.
When it has cooled a little, add beaten eggs, grated cheese, parsley, marjoram, finely chopped mint with a little verjuice. Blend them all together in a pot, stirring them slowly with a spoon so that they do not form a ball. The same may be done with livers and lungs.
Bring meat and water to a boil and cook 10 minutes; take meat out and cut up small; put back in water with broth, bread crumbs, pepper, and saffron. Simmer 1/2 hour over low flame, being careful that it does not stick. Mix in remaining ingredients; cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. This makes about 10 cups.
This is a rather meat-rich version; it also works with as little as half this much meat.