Recipe: Cotswold white chicken with brassicas and smoked bacon

Adam Smith, the Michelin-star-winning executive chef at Coworth Park, has shared a selection of seasonal recipes to keep warm us through the last few weeks of the winter.

Here's the first: a beautiful chicken dish that'll be a real show-stopper.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 whole Cotswold White chicken
• 1x head garlic
• 25g thyme
• 250g rosemary
• 200g button mushrooms (thinly sliced)
• 2 x banana shallots (thinly sliced)
• 250ml dry white wine
• 2lt white chicken stock
• 500ml double cream
• 1 hispi cabbage
• 250g sprouting broccoli
• 1 Romanesco cauliflower
• 250g wild mushrooms
• 4 tbsp chopped parsley
• 500g smoked bacon/ pancetta

Method

Cut the chicken in 10 pieces, each piece still on the bone. To do this; remove the wings and their tips, take the legs off and cut each in half through the knuckle. Cut down the centre of the breast and through the bone, and cut each in half. This is classically called cutting for sauté and you will have 2 wings, 2 thighs, 2 drumsticks and 4 pieces of breast meat all still on the bone; this helps keep in the moisture and adds big flavour.

Heat a thick-bottomed sauté pan and add a little cooking oil, season the chicken and place all skin side down in the pan. Cook for around 10 min until the skin is crispy and golden brown in colour, turn the chicken over and cook for a further 5 min.

Remove the chicken from the pan and reserve.

Slice half of the smoked bacon as thin as you can and bake in between baking trays in the oven at 170oc, this usually takes around 15 min until they are golden and crisp depending on the oven.

Add the garlic bulb that has been cut in half, remaining bacon that has been diced, the sliced shallots, sliced button mushrooms, thyme and rosemary; cook these all until they are golden brown in colour and deglaze the white wine, reduce this until a syrup. At this point, add the white chicken stock and simmer for 15min.

While waiting for the sauce, prepare the cabbage, Romanesco and broccoli into even sized pieces.

After 15 min add the double cream to the stock and bring to the boil, once boiled pass through a sieve and into a clean pan.

Add the chicken and all the brassicas into the sauce and slowly simmer for around 10 minutes, until the chicken and brassicas are just cooked.

Add the chopped parsley and serve into a large bowl, garnish the top with some pan fried wild mushrooms and bacon crisps.