Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains
Hühnerfrikassee (German chicken fricassee with rice)
Soft pieces of poached chicken, mushrooms, asparagus, peas and carrot in a mild, silky white sauce sharpened with a little lemon and a few capers, spooned over fluffy rice. The dish German children ask for, and adults secretly still do.
- Time
- 65 min (25 prep + 40 cook)
- Servings
- 4
- Per serving
- 634 kcal
- Protein
- 48 g
Ingredients
Rice
- 1 cup basmati rice, long-grain, rinsed
- 1 1/3 lb chicken breast, cut into 2 cm (3/4-inch) pieces
- 3 cups chicken broth, low-sodium
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 medium carrots, diced
- 9 oz asparagus, white or green, peeled if white, in short lengths
- 10 oz mushrooms, quartered
- 1 cup cooked frozen green peas
White sauce
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup white wine, dry
- 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp heavy cream
- 1 1/2 tbsp capers, drained
- 4 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp salt, to taste
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 1 small handful fresh parsley, chopped
Steps
- Put the rice on to cook according to the packet, in about twice its volume of lightly salted water, about 15 minutes in all, and let it steam, covered, off the heat.
- Bring the broth and bay leaf to a bare simmer in a wide pot, add the chicken and poach for 8 to 10 minutes, until cooked through (165°F). Lift it out with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add the carrot to the broth and simmer for 5 minutes, then the asparagus, mushrooms and peas for another 4 to 5 minutes, until just tender. Lift out the vegetables, remove the bay leaf and keep the broth.
- Melt the butter in the pot over medium heat, stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute without browning. Add the wine, then whisk in the warm broth a little at a time. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce coats a spoon, then stir in the cream.
- Return the chicken and vegetables, add the capers, lemon juice, salt, pepper and nutmeg, and warm through for 3 minutes without boiling. Taste: it should be mild, with a gentle tartness at the end.
- Scatter with parsley and serve over the rice. Cool the rice quickly and refrigerate it within an hour. The fricassee and rice keep 3 days in the fridge; without the rice, the fricassee freezes for 3 months.
Good to know
Can I use leftover or roast chicken?
Yes, as most German families do. Warm about 450 g of cooked, shredded chicken in the finished sauce and use good broth, because you lose the flavour from poaching.
Can I leave out the wine?
Yes; use the same amount of broth with a little extra lemon juice. It comes out at about the same score.
Should I add an egg yolk?
The old-fashioned way is to stir one egg yolk and a little of the cream into the sauce at the very end, off the heat. It makes it richer and more golden, but the sauce must not boil again or it curdles.
Per
- Calories
- 98
- Protein
- (30%)
- 7 g
- Fat
- (29%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (41%)
- 10 g
- of which sugar
- 1 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 194 mg
About 55% of the alcohol remains after cooking; the label counts only that.
More meals
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 2535 kcal goes into the pot and 2655 g of ingredients comes out as about 2586 g of food: 98 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.