Several weeks ago, Amy asked about favorite beef stew on a thread on Slow Talk. The discussion mentioned Carbonnade which is a Belgium stew made with beer, mustard and onions. It has lingered in the back of my mind and I saw a chicken version posted on Simply Recipes. Chicken stew sounded perfect as a food to feed my ‘cold’.

The recipe is very easy. The hardest part is picking out the best beer for the stew. It needs to be a dark sweet beer without a lot of hops. The opposite of the IPA and Pale Ales that we have been drinking. I decided to get a bottle of the Ommegang Abbey Ale that was recommended. I was curious since I haven’t had it before and it is a US based brewery making beers in the Belgium style. Fortunately my local Central Market had it in stock. The bottle is large – about 24 oz and runs about $9 in the Seattle area. The recipe called for a 1 1/2 so we were about to both share a glass. It was very good dubble abbey style beer. I tend to prefer tripples which are less sweet but this was very good on a cool rainy fall day.

The recipe is very rich especially using chicken thighs. There will be a lot of fat given off and even by pouring most of it off, the dish was still very rich in chicken fat. But rich sauce goes well with boiled noodles. Perfect for lunch this week. Now.. if this cold will just go away!

You can find the recipe on Simply Recipes – Beer Braised Chicken

My market is stocking this chicken – sustainable and humane but not local

It uses LOTS of onions