Recipe below: Braised Chicken with Morels, Tarragon, and Thyme
Last night we had a thunderstorm that lasted for more than an hour. It was the low rumbling kind but with hardly any lightning, so the night sky remained dark. The rain wasn’t heavy, which was a good thing, as in a heavy rain we often lose power and I wasn’t in the mood for that (sometimes I am). I sat in bed with the cats, listening to the entire show. The cats weren’t scared, but they were upright and alert, with big eyes. A storm like this one, without lightning, is odd to sit through, but it let my head wander to thoughts of spring food, of everything I was eager to cook again. I focused on morels, with their honeycomb weenie caps, dry texture, and hollow insides.
Yesterday I had gone out looking for morels, searching in the correct places, around the moist, decaying crud that builds up under elms, ash, and old apple trees. I’ve had this house in the Hudson Valley for seven years. Every April when morel season starts, I go a little apeshit looking for them, but I’ve never found any. A neighbor, Larry, brought me about a dozen huge ones several years ago, all about six inches long, that he found somewhere around here. He wouldn’t say where. I wasn’t furious with him, but I was definitely irritated, and he knew it. I sliced them all in half, lengthwise, checking for bugs, which are common in these mushrooms, but I didn’t find any, so I just quickly sautéed his mega morels in butter and splashed them with grappa. That is one of the best ways to bring out their earth flavor. And just so you know, you don’t want to eat them raw; their toxins need to be heated out and away.
Today, after last night’s rain, I figured I’d go out again, looking. But it’s still raining, so I guess I’ll wait until later, when things dry out a bit.
In the meantime I want to share with you a very good recipe for chicken with dish that I made the other night with morels I had bought at Eataly for $55 a pound. I swear that was the price. I bought exactly ten of them, and the bill came to $12. I justified the expense by telling myself that at least I didn’t get the golden morels, the lighter ones piled up next to the run-of-the-mill ones I did buy. Those were going for $85 a pound. I have a love-hate relationship with that store.
This recipe is a pretty straightforward braise. Morels, chicken, and tarragon are a classic French trio, but I decided to strengthen it by adding thyme at the beginning of cooking, as an underpinning, and then introducing the tarragon right at the end, so it wouldn’t lose any of its potency. I was really happy with the result, and it produced lots of rich, earthy sauce to flavor rice I served with it.
Morel season is just beginning up here, and I’ll continue to scout around, like I always do. I don’t have high hopes for success, but you never know. I might get lucky. I’ll keep you posted.
Braised Chicken with Morels, Tarragon, and Thyme
½ cup all-purpose flour
Salt
Black pepper
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground coriander seed
8 chicken thighs, including their bone and skin, or a mix of thighs and drumsticks
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large shallot, finely diced
A dozen or more morels, cut in half lengthwise (and don’t forget to check for bugs)
6 large thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
A big splash of cognac or brandy
A small glass of dry vermouth
1 cup good-quality chicken broth
1 heaping tablespoon crème fraîche
About 8 large tarragon sprigs, the leaves chopped
Pour the flour out onto a plate. Add salt, black pepper, and the allspice and coriander seed, mixing everything together.
Dry off the chicken pieces, and season them with a little salt and black pepper. Coat them all lightly with the seasoned flour.
Get out a large skillet, and set it over medium high heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil and the butter, and let it heat up. Add the chicken, skin side down, and let it cook without moving it around until it’s well browned and about halfway cooked through, probably around 6 or 7 minutes. You may need to turn the heat down a bit if it’s browning too quickly. Next flip the chicken over, and cook it until it’s just tender with a touch of pink at the bone, about another 6 minutes. Take the chicken out of the pan and place it on a plate, skin side up. Pour off some, but not all, of the pan fat.
Add the shallot, morels, and thyme, and season with salt and black pepper. Sauté until the mushrooms have softened some and start giving off a nice earthy fragrance. Splash on the cognac, and let it boil away. Add the vermouth, and let it bubble for a few seconds. Add the chicken broth. Turn the heat to medium low, and simmer for about 5 minutes to lightly reduce the sauce. Add the crème fraîche, stirring it in, and let it simmer and blend in.
Return the chicken to the pan, skin side up. Scatter on the tarragon, and heat the chicken through over a low flame, spooning some of the sauce on it and letting the whole thing come together, about another five minutes. Check for seasoning, and serve hot.
You’ll have a rich sauce, so you’ll best serve the dish with something that will soak it up, like plain rice or orzo.