I was looking forward to this “chicken valencia”, which Mary Berry calls it, especially because of the promising flavoursome sauce and juicy chicken thighs.
“This is a casserole that you will come back to again and again,” said Mary Berry and, after trying it myself, she’s absolutely right.
Even just one look at the chicken casserole when it came out of the oven was enough to make me swoon – and the taste lived up to how delicious it looked.
Mary Berry recommended serving potato mash and kale alongside the chicken casserole, so I wasn’t going to stray from the top British cook’s tip.
Gathering all my ingredients together required for the recipe, I was ready to make Mary Berry’s chicken casserole meal.
Chicken casserole
Serves: four to six
Ingredients:
Two tbsp Waitrose sunflower oil
Eight Waitrose chicken thighs on the bone, skin removed
Six Waitrose rashers of smoked streaky bacon, thinly sliced
Two Waitrose onions, thinly sliced
Three Waitrose garlic cloves, crushed
25g Waitrose plain flour
300ml Waitrose white wine
One x 400g Waitrose tin of chopped tomatoes
One tbsp Waitrose muscovado sugar
400g Waitrose button mushrooms, sliced
One tbsp of chopped Waitrose thyme leaves
Waitrose salt and freshly ground black pepper
Kale
Potatoes
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/Gas 3, then heat one tablespoon of the oil in a casserole dish (that has a lid) on top of the stove.
Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper on a chopping board, then add the seasoned meat to the pan and brown on high heat for two to three minutes on each side, until it’s golden all over.
Once the chicken thighs are golden, remove them onto a plate, cover with foil, and set aside.
Add the bacon and onions to the casserole dish and fry for three to four minutes over high heat until the bacon is crispy. While the bacon and onions are sizzling, move on to make the casserole sauce.
Casserole sauce
Measure the flour into the bowl, then add wine little by little. I went for Waitrose Canaletto Pinot Grigio (£6.99). Whisk into a smooth paste. Once the bacon is crispy, add the garlic and fry for a further 30 seconds.
Now add the flour and wine paste to the casserole dish alongside canned chopped tomatoes and brown sugar, then stir well. Bring to the boil, then return the chicken and any juices to the pan and bring back up to the boil, stirring.
Cover with the lid and cook in the oven for 45 minutes or until the chicken is tender and cooked through. With the chicken casserole cooking inside of the oven, it was time for me to boil potatoes in a steamer pan.
Shortly before the chicken is cooked, I heated some oil in a frying pan and browned the sliced button mushroom. While the mushrooms were frying, I added another part of the steamer pan on top of the boiling potatoes to quickly steam the kale in under five minutes.
When the kale had wilted, I put the leafy green onto serving plates and proceeded to drain and mash the potatoes.
In the final moments, I added the mushrooms and chopped thyme to the casserole dish and served up the meal, which tasted sensational and so delicious that this recipe will now become a firm favourite.
Waitrose kindly gifted the ingredients needed for the Mary Berry chicken casserole recipe.
