Garlicky Pan-fried Organic Chicken

Jul 16

When my kids were small, I started my Instagram account as a lighthearted way of documenting our meals and sharing the French approach to home cooking. At that time...

Alexandra Stacey

I was living in London with two small kids and missing my family back in France. I also really wanted my kids to experience the sense of excitement and anticipation that I had felt in the kitchen as a child. I was lucky enough to grow up in a leafy suburb just outside Paris, and as I was growing up, I loved nothing more than spending time in the kitchen watching my mum and my grandma cook. They were both such accomplished home cooks that catered daily for big hungry families - my grandparents had five children, and my parents had four, so multi-generational meals at the weekend were fabulously noisy and animated gatherings.

One of my earliest memories is of sitting under the long dining table in my grandmother's house, munching on a piece of baguette, and listening to all the laughter and conversations happening somewhere above my head. We ate seasonally, and my mum and grandma went to the market every week and bought the freshest produce to make sensational soups and salads, which we ate daily.

*There is such joy to be found in French home cooking, and it can be just as delicious and satisfying as the most glamorous dishes in French haute cuisine.*

Connect with Alexandra

Eating Sustainably

I adored visiting the local food market and used to diligently carry my mum's basket, which would become heavier and heavier as we walked from stall to stall buying the creamiest cheeses, selecting the freshest lettuce, the sweetest clementines in January and the most perfumed peaches in July.

To this day, France is truly blessed with some incredible growers and food producers who work with passion and dedication to produce delicious sustainable ingredients.

I like to think that my cooking is very much about "eating the rainbow" with a French twist—I love to make a Dijon mustard vinaigrette or a deliciously garlicky aïoli to enhance a bowl of colourful vegetables and salads. I use a lot of fresh herbs in my cooking which is something that French home cooks do a lot.

You can add such a layer of flavour using chives, parsley, tarragon, or sage. French home cooking is also about using leftovers-my grandmother really drilled into us the 'waste not want not' approach—she never threw anything away.

In an age that is becoming really conscious of the need to eat sustainably, French recipes are often all about using up leftovers in quiches, gratins, and salads.

Garlicky Pan-fried Organic Chicken

With steamed potatoes, watercress, and asparagus. By Alexandra Stacey.

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 organic chicken breasts skin-on (season well with salt and pepper)
4 large garlic cloves peeled
500g organic baby potatoes
400g asparagus
Chives
Watercress leaves washed
A little butter
Handful of olives

1. Cook the chicken

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a cast iron lidded pan.
Place the fillets skin-side down in the pan.
Add the peeled garlic cloves.
Pop the lid on and fry on a high heat for 5 minutes. The chicken skin should have turned golden.
Turn the fillets over. Add 100ml water to the pan.
Turn the heat right down to simmer and put the lid back on. Simmer for 30 minutes.

2. Steam the potatoes

Peel the potatoes, season with salt, and place them in a steamer above a pan of boiling water.
Steam for 30 minutes.

3. Cook the asparagus

Trim the asparagus, rinse them carefully under a tap of cold water to remove any grit, and cook in a pan of boiling water for 3 minutes.
Set aside to cool.