French Chicken: Dairy-Free Version

Posted on April, 2015 Updated on April, 2015

Chicken, bacon, potatoes, onions, deliciousness. That’s what you’ll find in this amazing chicken recipe, adapted from my go-to cookbook for anything that comes from an animal, called Long Way on a Little by Shannon Hayes (author of Radical Homemakers). In the book this dish is called “Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme, Made Simple,” but I like to make it even simpler and just call it “French Chicken.” I use less onions and more bacon than Shannon’s recipe calls for and I substitute butter (dairy) with bacon grease.

Did I mention this chicken is fantastic? Well it is. It takes time to make and keeps a cook close to the stove to tend to it, but it is well worth the time. It’s one of those recipes that begs to be made if you’ve already got to spend some time in the kitchen. I suggest having a list of chores handy to keep occupied – oil the wood, polish the appliances, clean out the dishwasher filter, etc. You’re going to want to keep close by anyway, because the smell of this bird cooking… it’s nothing short of wonderful. The yummy bacon/onion scent sticks around all evening, too. Who needs air fresheners when there’s bacon, amiright??

Here we go. First, start as many of our recipes here on Nourishing Rainbows start – with warming up a piece of cast iron while gathering ingredients. This time we’re using a dutch oven, mostly to contain the splatter from cooking grease and so we can cover the bird to cook on the stove. After the cast iron is set over medium low heat, get out half a pound of bacon, a medium-sized onion, some potatoes (red potatoes or fingerlings work well with this), a few cloves of garlic and a whole chicken, plus salt and pepper. Prep the chicken (remove gizzard and neck if those came with) and give it a good salt and pepper rub inside and outside and place 3 or 4 garlic cloves in the cavity.

Side note – we don’t normally eat potatoes, and you won’t find them on our What We Eat list. We tend to limit nightshade foods from our diet as they can compound digestive issues. But this time we had red potatoes in the house already (a hurried grocery shopping mistake) and they needed to be used, so here we are. Normally I use white sweet potatoes in this recipe, though. They are a little sweeter but still give that startchy element to the dish. I’ll use white sweet potatoes in the full recipe below, but obviously the pictures show red potatoes being used.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Cut the bacon into one-inch pieces and line the bottom of the cast iron with it. You’ll know the cast iron is at the correct temp if the bacon gives off a quiet sizzle when it hits the pan. No sizzle? No worries, the pan will heat up as the bacon cooks, it just takes a little longer. On the other hand, do you get a loud sizzle when the bacon touches the cast iron? Again no worries, just turn down the heat a bit and expect that bacon to cook quickly, so watch it closely. It takes cast iron several minutes to adjust temperature so watch your food with patience.

If at the proper temp, the bacon will cook about 7 minutes on each side. The bacon is ready to be flipped over when it starts to curl ever so slightly, as seen in the image above.

While the bacon cooks, chop the onion. For this recipe I like to chop fairly thick wedges, mostly because it’s easier that way! When the bacon is fairly well cooked on each side, but not completely done, throw in the onion wedges and stir them up to coat them with the bacon grease that has accumulated in the pan. Cook the onions until they are soft and slightly translucent, about 7-10 minutes. Stir once or twice during that time. While the onions are cooking, chop up the potatoes in pieces slightly bigger than bite-sized, about an inch square.

Now that the onion is soft and the bacon is fully cooked, transfer the bacon and onions to a separate bowl so we can cook the potatoes. I like to transfer to a stainless steel bowl because it will get warm with the heat of the freshly cooked onions and bacon, but any kind of separate dish will work just fine.

Extra bacon grease is nice to have on hand at this point. The pan will be coated with a bit of leftover grease from what we just cooked, but potatoes love to try to stick to cast iron so grease it up. Place the potatoes in the cast iron in a single layer. Try not to stack the potatoes so that the potato flesh has contact with the cooking surface. This will help the potatoes cook faster and make them brown nicely. Season with salt and pepper. Flip the potatoes every 10 minutes or so, allowing them to cook evenly and get crispy on several sides. It should take about 30 minutes in total with the potatoes.

I really want to eat those potatoes when they’re done… but don’t! Save them because they are going to get EVEN MORE delicious by the end.

Once the potatoes are done, remove them from the pan and add them to the cooked bacon and onions. The trio of yummy ingredients will join us again in a bit. Now we move on to the chicken. Our bird has been prepped and salted and should be at room temperature by now. It’s important that the bird is both dry and not cold because a wet and cold chicken will not crisp up the way we want it to.

We’re going to sear the chicken on all sides, so start by getting that reserve of bacon grease again and adding a generous amount to the cast iron pan – at least a tablespoon. We don’t want the precious and tasty chicken skin to stick to the cast iron, we want it to stay on the chicken and ultimately end up in our mouths and bellies! So do yourself a favor and grease that pan up again! You can’t really over-grease as we’ll add a bit more grease every time we flip the chicken.

Now that the pan is greased, add the chicken on it’s side, with a leg down touching the pan. It’s a balancing act, but again, worth it. The chicken will need to sear for about 7-10 minutes. It will be hard to budge before it’s ready, so don’t touch it until at least seven minutes have passed. Once it is time to move the chicken, it helps to have a spatula to scrape between the skin and the pan so that the skin doesn’t stick. I use my handy wooden spatula for the job, since I don’t like using metal on cast iron. Flip the chicken onto its back, maybe add some more bacon grease, and sear for another 7-10 minutes. Then sear on the uncooked leg/side, then breast. If you notice the grease starting to disappear at any point, be sure to add more.

Here’s my chicken mostly seared – I accidentally flipped it breast-side down second, which I don’t normally like to do (and I’ll tell you why in a moment), but it’s cool, it still tastes the same! Searing gives not only extra flavor to the skin and meat but also makes it a bit crispy for some extra yum.

Once the sides and back are seared, flip the bird on its breast. At this point we can turn the heat down a bit and bring our trio of bacon, onion, and potatoes back to the pan, as well as the rest of the garlic cloves, maybe six or seven of them. Cover the pan and cook the chicken for about 30 minutes. This is why I like to save the breast side to sear last – we can eliminate 7-10 minutes by combining the searing step with this cooking step, since the pan will stay hot to sear for a few minutes even though we’ve turned down the heat. But if you’re like me and seared the breast before the back anyway, no worries! You just get to take in the lovely smells of this dish for an extra few minutes. Lucky us!

We are almost done – I promise! Hopefully during some of these waiting times while searing and then 30 minutes of cooking you’ve been able to do a few chores around the kitchen. Or catch up on your social networking, make phone calls, chat with the kids – whatever you can do in or near the kitchen to pass the time.

Once the chicken has cooked for 30 minutes, it’s time to flip the bird (haha) again, this time turning it on its back so it is breast-side-up. Don’t add the lid this time – this will help the chicken stay crispy by letting the steam escape. Adding the lid will save some time but the crispy skin we’ve worked for will soften up.

Now let the bird cook another 20-25 minutes until the breast is 165 degrees or the juices between the breast and thigh run clear. Once fully cooked, remove the chicken to a serving platter and surround it with the bacon, onion, potatoes, and garlic.

Let the chicken sit for about 15 minutes or so (which should be enough time to get the fixins out of the pan and arranged on the platter) so the juices mellow out and the meat cools a bit before serving. Then serve it up! Don’t plan on too many leftovers – this one goes really, really quickly.

We served ours with leftover sauteed green beans (all the bacon tonight!!). It’s the kind of meal that doesn’t need much for a side dish since the potatoes are so very filling and tasty.