How to Cook Chicken With Mushrooms in a Cast Iron Dutch Oven.

I've been looking for meals that can be made in one pan wherever possible and are rustic in style, as a sort of reaction to all the nouveau cuisine that is so popular today.

I was lucky enough to get a couple of cast iron pots for my birthday and that swung it for me to try and use them to their fullest.

This weekend my sister was coming around for a meal with her hubby who hates anything 'spicy' to eat. So I needed a meal that would be tasty and easy to cook. It's so frustrating when family and friends come around and you are stuck in the kitchen making the meal.

What you need for this recipe is pretty simple.

This should serve four.

1/2 a good sized chicken; leg and breast.

2 medium onions

4 cloves of garlic.

1 dessertspoon of coriander powder.

Olive oil

A good slash of Worcestershire sauce. [no offence to my American friends but I love the way they pronounce Worcestershire.]

Another slash of balsamic vinegar

A good handful of mushrooms, broken into pieces

Salt and pepper to your taste.

1 tin of mushroom soup preferably condensed.

6 good sized potatoes to cook in their jackets.

Fahrenheit Gas Stove Mark

225 F 1/4 Mark

250 F 1/2 Mark

275 F 1 Mark

300 F 2 Marks

325 F 3 Marks

350 F 4 Marks

375 F 5 Marks

400 F 6 Marks

425 F 7 Marks

450 F 8 Marks

475 F 9 Marks

Put on the oven, about GM5-375ºF or 191ºC

Everything can be done hours before your guests arrive; that gives you time to put on your best frock and chill out before people arrive. Perhaps make a cocktail for yourself and sit back for an hour.

For the jacket potatoes.

Wash the skins and then put the potatoes in a baking tray in the middle of the oven. You can par-boil them to speed up the cooking. I have some metal skewers that I push through the potatoes, this helps the heat penetrate them.

Okay remove all the meat from half your chicken the one I cooked was a big bird, about 2 kilo so if your bird is not so big you can use a whole bird; it's up to you. Shred the meat rather than carve it, just pull it into pieces.

Add oil to your cooking pot and warm on a gentle heat.

Rough chop and then fine chop some of the onion and garlic.

Drop them in the warmed oil and stir, raise the heat a little so that the onions are just sweating.

Add the shredded meat and mix in.

Add mushrooms and seasoning including the Worcester sauce and coriander powder.

If you have condensed soup mix this in, only add water if you think you mix is a little dry. Maybe half the can of water will be enough.

When everything is at a rolling boil, switch off the heat.

Move the potatoes to the bottom of the oven assuming they've been there about an hour or so.

Now the benefit of that cast iron cook pot from hob to oven.

Close the oven door and go finish your cocktail, and wait like the ever efficient host for you guests to arrive. When all are ready open the oven and serve.

When the potatoes are cooked, slit them and add a little salt and a knob of butter, and then pour your chicken mix over the top. Decorate with a little dried or fresh herbs and serve.

Serve a well chilled white wine, maybe a new world merlot would be nice. I like Corbierres with aalmost everything so I'll stick to that.