Hunter's Chicken

There's a place in Stratford that makes "Hunter Chicken." It's really, really good. I decided to try to make it myself. Because it's also really, really expensive!

So, here goes:

1/3 cup white all-purpose flour
3 T olive oil
3 T butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 kg skinless, boneless chicken thighs
6 slices bacon, chopped
2 onions, finely chopped
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups canned diced tomatoes
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 lb button mushrooms
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

1. Lightly coat chicken with flour.
2. Heat oil, butter & garlic in giant deep frying pan on high (be careful - try med/high and adjust). Saute chicken pieces thoroughly on each side until golden (6-8 mins per side). Take chicken out; set aside; keep warm.
3. Add bacon, onion, rosemary & thyme into pan and cook 2-3 minutes at medium. Deglaze pan with the wine. Cook 12-15 minutes on med. until cooking juices reduce and are completely absorbed.
4. Add tomatoes and put chicken back in pan. Add chicken broth, bay leaf, salt & pepper. Add mushrooms. (At this point, I also added a handful of cauliflower and carrots that were in my crisper. Obviously...this is optional...there might have even been a sprig of broccoli.)
5. Cover, reduce heat to lowest and cook very, very, very slowly for about an hour.

I didn't eat this yet. I turned off the heat, let it sit in the pan for 20 minutes, then put it into two beautiful casserole dishes, covered with plastic wrap and put in fridge.
I'm going to serve it tomorrow night.
I'll let you know how it turned out then.

Watch this space!

Notes After Dinner: I found there will still a lot of liquid in the stew. Some of the recipes called for corn starch, but I didn't like that idea. It could be served over rice to absorb the broth, but I don't care for rice and I was serving potatoes, so I didn't want to do that. Next time, I would add less broth and cook step 3 a little longer. It was very tasty, so it will definitely be worth refining the recipe.
K