Simple Braised Chicken (in a lovely new pan)

Every time I watched Nigel Slater on his Simple Supper TV series, I coveted his cream coloured cast iron pan. It's a combination pan and shallow casserole (a pan with a lid), perfect for braises and those single pot dishes that start off with a quick appearance on the stove followed by a spell in the oven before arriving at the dinner table, looking fabulous and ready for company.

I needed one of those pots. Badly. So I abandoned my no-spend experiment and pounced on the Le Creuset display at Kirk's sale last week.

There was a choice of blue or orange. In keeping with my "no matching" policy, I got blue.

As you can see, it clashes perfectly with the trusty green casserole and the orange grill pan. I am now fully equipped with cast iron cookware.

The shallow pan has much more surface area than the deep pot, so it's better for sautes and braises. This one was a classic chicken pieces with bacon, onions, garlic, oregano, white wine, and chicken stock. Just a little bit of liquid -- a puddle, not a swimming pool. In the oven at 180 for about 40 minutes.

If you follow the basic process here, you can substitute any flavours you want. Chilli and ginger with soy sauce would be amazing. Mushrooms, leeks and red wine would work too. Experiment away.

WHAT TO DO

The chicken

• Get enough chicken pieces for whoever you're feeding. I jointed a whole chicken.
• Heat a heavy pan slowly. Slug in a puddle of olive oil and a little slab of butter (or not -- over to you.)
• Salt and pepper the chicken, and sit it in the pan, skin side down to start, and let it colour up gently. We're not looking for smoke and drama here, just a nice toasty colour on the meat. Turn it over so it's a bit cooked on all sides. 
• Take the chicken out of the pan and put it in a holding dish.

The other flavours

• Put a handful of chopped up bacon pieces into the pan, along with some quartered onions (leave the root end intact) or some whole shallots, and some roughly chopped garlic.
• Sprinkle over some dried oregano. 
• Give it the occasional stir until the onions are starting to get softish (not browned).

The assembly
Nestle the chicken pieces into the softened onions and bacon.
Pour in a small amount of white wine and chicken stock. Just enough to make a puddle in the bottom of the pan. We want to start off steamy, and finish up with a nice sticky sauce, so go lightly.
Bring to a bubbling boil.

The braising and finishing

Put the lid on the pot and stick in the oven (180 for 45 minutes).
If you've got a well-fitting lid, you shouldn't need to worry about it drying out, but do check if you like and add a slug of liquid if you need to. 
When the chicken is cooked through, give the dish a good big handful of chopped parsley and some greens from a couple of green onions if you like, and zest with some lemon for a bit of amazing zing.

Having more than one cast iron pot allows for braising more than one dish at a time, so I did some yams as well. Oil, butter, salt, pepper, a slosh of chicken stock, and lid on for half an hour. This one stayed on the stove top, on the lowest heat. Give the yams a shuffle around occasionally so they cook evenly.

Serve with a simple salad for a warming but not-too-heavy dinner. Certainly nowhere near as heavy as the pan it was cooked in.