Creole Chicken with a Surprise Ingredient

Well, it's nice to be back in the kitchen. Just before Christmas, I had neck surgery, and since then, I've been like a baby giraffe, a newborn baby giraffe, and I couldn't move my neck properly, and it's just been awful. Anyway, I'm moving about much better now. My neck's a little bit stiff, but that's why we've not had any videos, so we've got a lot of catching up to do, because I've got so much I want to share with you over the next few weeks with these different dishes. Today, I want to make a simple chicken dish that you can make at home, midweek, or even for entertaining too, and it's easy to make. It's fairly cheap with the ingredients too, but I know you're going to love it. I'm making a chicken creole. It's a classic Louisiana dish, and it's born from 18th century flavorings of the fusion of the French, and the Spanish, and the African, and the Caribbean influences all come together in New Orleans. It's a classic Louisiana comfort food that features chicken braising away in this rich, creamy tomato sauce. It's flavored with the holy trinity of creole cooking, onions, bell peppers, and celery. Now, my creole chicken is slightly different. I have my own little add-ins there too, and I like to put a little cream in the sauce. Makes it even creamier, but I also add some crawfish in there, and oh, I mean it's optional, but these really do take it to the next level. Let's get cooking. Two pans. One, I'll cook the chicken, and the second one, I'll make the sauce. If you want to, you can make it all in one pan. I start with the chicken, and a little salt on the chicken. Then some oil in the pan, and I'm going to sear the chicken on both sides. Once I get a nice sear on the bottom of the chicken, then I can put some seasoning, some salt on the other side, just before I turn it over. Now we're going to let the chicken cook, so I'm going to lower the temperature, and I'm going to put a lid on. Along with my holy trinity, I've got a few other ingredients that I'm putting in the dish too. I've got some oregano, I've got some garlic, I've got some smoked paprika. I like smoked paprika in this dish. Gives it a rich earthiness. I've got some cayenne pepper, some flour, and of course, some tomatoes. Some chicken broth, which I'm going to need as well, and look at those beautiful crawfish tails. I start off with a little oil in the pan. Then I can add my trinity, celery, bell pepper, and onions, and a little salt in there too, because that helps draw the moisture out, and helps them to soften. I want to cook these until they're nice and soft and translucent, so we need to cook it on a fairly low heat, but not too low, that it takes forever, but at the same time, not too high, that it starts to burn, because we don't want it burnt on the edges, like the onion, because that just makes it bitter. While the vegetables are sautéing, it takes about two or three minutes to do, I want to tell you about this cookware that I use in my videos. It's Deluxe Cookware, I've got the 13-piece cookware set, and look at this Deluxe Cookware here. This is ceramic cookware, non-stick, and I've got the 12-inch frying pan, the tempered glass lid, stay cool handles, and it really is fantastic. Deluxe reinvented premium cookware. This hybrid cookware brings together the performance of stainless steel, and the durability of cast iron, and the convenience of non-stick too, and so reasonably priced. The Deluxe Cookware is safe in the oven up to 500 degrees, the pans are built to last a lifetime, and what I love about them is, you can also use metal utensils on there, because it's ceramic, there's no Teflon in there, no nasty Teflon at all. Look at the chicken breast simmering away nicely in this Deluxe ceramic pan, with the tempered glass, you can see that as it's cooking. Once the trinity is nice and soft and translucent, then we can add in the garlic. Now I put a little garlic in mine, don't want it overpowering, you can put as much as you want in there to taste. Then my oregano, my cayenne pepper, again, how spicy do you like the sauce to be? Well, I'm not from Louisiana, so not too spicy for me, and then the smoked paprika. Stir all those together, and then we can add the flour. Once the flour's in, we can add some chicken broth. Keep stirring it, because we don't want any lumps, and next, the tomatoes. I've got petty diced tomatoes in there, you can use fresh if you want to, but I buy the canned ones and put those in, and they just stew nicely into this sauce, and make it amazing. It already smells so good with the garlic and the smoked paprika in there, we'll let that just cook for a little while, reduce the heat and let it simmer. Once it's been simmering for about three or four minutes, then I can add my cream. Not everyone puts cream in this, I know people in New Orleans are going to say, no, no, no, you don't put that in, but a little cream in there, look at that, how it changes that colour too, that just looks gorgeous. And then finally, my crawfish, stir those in, look at that, I mean it's almost like a soup on its own, you could just eat that as it is. You've got to heat that, so just bring the heat up a little bit, and make sure that comes to the boil, and then let's check on the chicken. The joy of the Deluxe Cookware is that the handles stay cold, and also, the pans are non-stick. And don't forget this little deglassage, these little juices from the chicken that we're just going to add into the sauce as well. Yep, we can scrape it in, they're ceramic, it's not Teflon. And give it a stir, smells so good. If you're not sure on whether your chicken's cooked or not, don't cut into it this side, turn the chicken breast over, and then make a cut in here, in the bottom. Open it up, give it a squeeze, and if the juices run out clean, the chicken is cooked perfect, turn it back over, and no one knows that you were testing to see if the chicken was cooked. We're going to let that rest for about three or four minutes, and then we can pour the sauce over. Once the chicken has rested, then we can cut it. You don't have to cut it, you can put it into the dish, or on the plate, and serve it as it is whole. But I like to take it, and just cut into roughly bite-sized pieces. Look how gorgeous that chicken is. And don't waste the beautiful juices from the chicken, they go into the sauce to give it even more flavour. Look at this, beautiful, beautiful sauce. In there, I'm going to finish with some chopped parsley. That's optional, you don't have to, but look at the colour, how that makes a difference. It looks absolutely gorgeous. And then, we'll just spoon this over the top of the chicken. Now traditionally it's served with mashed potatoes or rice, I think rice is probably the main thing it's served with, but I love it with mashed potatoes, it's so creamy, and so comforting. Doesn't that just look and smell amazing? And how easy was it to do, put together in a few minutes? There's some chicken under there somewhere, let's see. Here we go. Look at that. I've got to taste it, it's too big. Let's try a smaller piece at the end here. Here we go. The flavour of the chicken, and the garlic, and the smoked paprika, it's just hot enough with that cayenne pepper in there too. The crawfish, I love the crawfish, I'm going to enjoy this one. I've put a link in the description to the deluxe cookware, check it out, it really is for the home cook, for those that are serious about cooking at home, try the recipe, share it with your friends, make double, it freezes perfectly, so double the batch, put one in the freezer. Give me a thumbs up, leave me a comment below, tell me about how I shouldn't put cream into my creole sauce, forgive me, honestly it makes a difference, it really does. I'll see you again soon.