Bring a large pan of water to boil
Add the carrot, leek, onion, celery and garlic
Add the chicken with the lemon, parsley, peppercorns, bay leaf and salt making sure the water is enough to cover the chicken
Cover the pan and simmer for 45 minutes then take off the heat and remove the chicken
What remains in the pan is the reduced stock. You need to strain it to remove the bay, lemon etc
Remove the bones and discard. Dice the chicken into bitesize pieces
To make the base sauce, melt the butter in a pan and add the flour. Cook for a minute
Take off the heat and stir in 600mls of the strained stock
Bring to the boil stirring all the while, then let simmer for 10 minutes
Now to add your finishing variation:
To make the mushroom fricassee, melt the butter in a pan and fry off the shallots until golden
Add the wine, bring to boil then reduce by half
Stir the mushrooms, shallots & wine and soured cream into the base recipe sauce
Add in the chicken and heat through. Season to taste
To make the asparagus fricassee, simmer the trimmed asparagus and peas in lightly salted water for around 5 minutes
Drain them then add to the base sauce with the chicken
Heat through, stir in the cream and season to taste
For the kid-friendly version (no salt, plenty of sweet veg) stir the cream into the base sauce, add the chicken and cooked vegetables and heat through
CHEATS VERSION: Use pre-cooked, chopped chicken. Cook some chopped vegetables of choice in 600mls chicken stock. Strain the vegetables and set aside. Add the stock to the butter/flour (roux) mixture with 4 tbsp cream, then add back in the chicken and vegetables. An even bigger cheat is to just use a can or two of cream of chicken or mushroom soup, in place of the stock/cream mixture. I've never seen a dairy-free one yet though but I do have both of those recipes posted, free-from of course....
