There was chicken, gravy and carrots left over from yesterday’s late Sunday lunch so this evening I made a sort of chicken fricassée the inspiration for which, but not the execution, came from Jane Grigson’s Good Things.

I have never been quite sure what a fricassée is. I just remember having them at home – a bowl of cooked chicken in a pale creamy sauce eaten with plain boiled rice.

The recipe said to thicken the sauce with cream and eggs but I wasn’t sure that was necessary.

I cooked a finely chopped onion in butter with thick chopped carrots and a scrape of garlic until the onion had started to soften. I then tipped in the chicken stock I had made last night with the carcass and gravy and brought it all to a slow simmer. Once the carrots were almost done I stirred in the left over chicken to heat through and put on the rice to cook.

Unfortunately there was no plain white rice in the house so we had to make do with basmati and wild rice despite at least one of the children declaring that they didn’t like the black bits.

It all went down very well as we listened to a dodgy disco compilation that could have been left over from the frugging that went down late Friday night in The Grapes.