Chicken in White Wine by Marie

Pour about 2/3 of a bottle of wine, a cup of stock, the juice of a lemon, a couple of flattened cloves of garlic, a couple of bay leaves and a splash of white wine vinegar into a saucepan, and simmer until it has reduced by half. (You do not need to be particularly precise about quantities. Which is true for the entire recipe, actually.)

Heat some olive oil in a large pan, get your whole chicken and brown it in the olive oil. Bit fiddly, I tend to find it's easiest to manoeuvre the chicken by shoving a wooden spoon into the cavity. Take the chicken out, turn the heat right down and sweat some garlic, celery, carrots and leeks. The garlic and celery are just for flavour but you need to put in enough carrots and leeks to act as a side dish. I tend to allow one leek and one carrot per person, or slightly less, depending on the size of the veg. Chopped up, obviously. Once they are looking soft, put the chicken on top, and pour the white wine liquid into the pan (fish out the flattened garlic first). You can add some herbs at this point, anything you like really. I reckon fresh thyme would be nice, or maybe tarragon. I usually use a dried Herbes de Provence mix. Lid on, simmer for about an hour, depending on the size of the chicken. I've got to say I don't actually remember how long I usually cook it for, so check for doneness.

Once it's done, carefully lift the chicken out and place on a serving dish, and pour out the veg and wine mix into another dish. Serve with mash or rice. Or anything you like!