---
title: 'Chicken Chasseur (with WHAT juice??)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Axt9_Q2ES6A'
video_id: 'Axt9_Q2ES6A'
date: 2026-07-22
duration_sec: 507
channel: 'Adam Ragusea'
---

# Chicken Chasseur (with WHAT juice??)

> Source: [Chicken Chasseur (with WHAT juice??)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Axt9_Q2ES6A)

## Summary

This video presents a detailed recipe for chicken chasseur, a French-style hunter's chicken, with a secret ingredient that adds complexity to the sauce. The chef demonstrates how to break down a whole chicken, prepare the dish, and achieve a rich, glossy finish.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Chicken Chasseur** [00:00] — The chef introduces chicken chasseur as an ideal fancy home-cooked meal and reveals a secret ingredient that might offend traditionalists.
- **Cutting the Chicken** [00:13] — The chef demonstrates how to cut a 4-pound chicken into pieces, including separating legs, deboning thighs, and preparing airline breasts with drumettes attached.
- **Seasoning and Coating** [02:08] — The chicken is seasoned with pepper and salt, then coated in flour to help thicken the sauce later.
- **Browning the Chicken** [04:19] — The chicken is browned skin-side down in olive oil over high heat until golden, then set aside.
- **Cooking Vegetables and Deglazing** [05:03] — Mushrooms and shallots are cooked in the pan with extra flour, then deglazed with dry vermouth for added flavor.
- **Secret Ingredient: V8 Juice** [05:48] — The chef adds V8 juice (or equivalent) as the sauce base, praising its smooth texture and complex flavor. Demi-glace or concentrated stock is also added.
- **Simmering and Finishing** [06:42] — The chicken simmers for over an hour until tender. The sauce is seasoned with pepper, salt, butter, tarragon, and lemon juice.
- **Plating and Final Thoughts** [07:57] — The dish is served with noodles, showcasing the boneless thigh and lollypop leg. The sauce is rich and complex, complementing the white meat.

### Conclusion

The chef successfully creates a restaurant-quality chicken chasseur at home using a surprising secret ingredient—V8 juice—which enhances the sauce's flavor and texture. The dish is both impressive and accessible for home cooks.

## Transcript

but I've been making chicken chasseur a&nbsp; lot at home lately — French-style hunter's&nbsp;&nbsp; chicken — and I just think it's an almost&nbsp; ideal fancy home-cooked meal. Here's how I'm&nbsp;&nbsp;
making it lately. I've got a secret ingredient&nbsp; that might offend the frogs, don't tell them. Traditionally you use skin-on chicken pieces. Buy&nbsp; them already cut up if you can, but I'm just gonna&nbsp;&nbsp;
cut up this 4 pound, 2 kilo chicken myself.&nbsp; My way is neither quick nor elegant but it's&nbsp;&nbsp; easy. Cut that skin between the leg quarter&nbsp; and the body, and then I dangle the chicken&nbsp;&nbsp; by the drumstick. The tension opens up the hip&nbsp; joint and makes it easy to slice right through.
Once it's off, I'll separate the drum from&nbsp; the thigh. Slice behind the knee there and&nbsp;&nbsp; then I pick it up and crack it open —&nbsp; dislocate the joint so you can slice&nbsp;&nbsp; the rest of the way. You could cook the&nbsp; thighs whole but I'm gonna debone them.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Just go down the length of the femur&nbsp; to open everything up, get under the&nbsp;&nbsp; bone with your knife and it doesn't have to&nbsp; be pretty, just get that bone out of there. To make the breasts easier I'll make a&nbsp; couple slits on each side of the wish bone,&nbsp;&nbsp;
reach in there, dig around and just lever&nbsp; the whole thing out like that. Start at&nbsp;&nbsp; the apex and peel the meat off a little at a&nbsp; time, following the rib cage with your knife. When I get down to the shoulder joint&nbsp; I just crack it open so I can get&nbsp;&nbsp;
through with my knife and there's a&nbsp; breast with wing. Save the carcass. I'll need a heavier knife for this&nbsp; part. Just to fancy up the legs,&nbsp;&nbsp; I'll go straight down to the bone, just below&nbsp; the meaty part, circumnavigate the whole tibia&nbsp;&nbsp;
there and then scrape down to the ankle which I&nbsp; will finally remove by just popping through the&nbsp;&nbsp; bone — a little smack on the spine of the knife&nbsp; gets you through. Those will cook up real pretty. so I dislocate the elbow and cut&nbsp; through. A boneless skinless breast&nbsp;&nbsp;
with the drummette attached makes a very pretty&nbsp; presentation. They call it an "airline breast." There's the meat, but you could cut it&nbsp; much more crudely or buy pre-cut pieces.&nbsp;&nbsp; All these scraps I will freeze to make stock&nbsp; later because I am now one of those people.
Enough pepper and salt to season both sides — I'm&nbsp; leaving extra on the board for the other side.&nbsp;&nbsp; And this is a good amount of flour — enough&nbsp; to coat the chicken AND thicken the sauce.&nbsp;&nbsp; Toss to coat everything. There we go, they&nbsp; look like little pillows, little clouds,&nbsp;&nbsp;
like the cloud I sleep on — a premium&nbsp; mattress in a box from Helix Sleep,&nbsp;&nbsp; sponsor of this video. Hey, March&nbsp; is National Sleep Awareness Month.
Anyway, a good coating of olive oil in my&nbsp; widest pan, or render some bacon in there&nbsp;&nbsp; if you want. I'll lay the chicken skin-side&nbsp; down. My heat is very high because there's a&nbsp;&nbsp; lot of mass here cooling it back down again.&nbsp; Real quick I can slice up some mushrooms.&nbsp;&nbsp;
cooked and I want this extra couple&nbsp; tablespoons of flour for thickening. I'll do a real quick chop on a shallot.&nbsp; That's it. Is the chicken ready to flip?
It releases real easy from the bottom of the&nbsp; pan, so probably. Man, look at that beautiful&nbsp;&nbsp; color from the flour, plus it’ll help the&nbsp; chicken kinda merge with the sauce later.&nbsp;&nbsp; Brown the other side. Don't worry about&nbsp; cooking the meat all the way through yet.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Just stop before the stuff at the bottom of the&nbsp; pan starts to burn — that would ruin the sauce. Take the chicken out to a plate or something, and&nbsp; then I'm just gonna put all these veggies in at&nbsp;&nbsp; once, with the flour — it's amazing how well they&nbsp; all cook together, IF you give it some extra olive&nbsp;&nbsp;
oil or butter or something. The mushrooms and&nbsp; flour will suck up a lot. Just get a little color,&nbsp;&nbsp; look for the mushrooms to shrink by about half&nbsp; and that's all the headstart this stuff needs. Time to deglaze, and lately I'm using dry vermouth&nbsp; for this. You could use normal white wine,&nbsp;&nbsp;
but the fortified wine just has a lot more taste&nbsp; to it, and I think this dish can sometimes be a&nbsp;&nbsp; little bland — it just needs an extra boost&nbsp; the vermouth provides. Even the dry stuff is&nbsp;&nbsp; pretty sweet tasting, which brings a lot to the&nbsp; dish. That’s like a whole glass of vermouth.
Once the bottom of the pan is clean&nbsp; I'll throw the chicken back in,&nbsp;&nbsp; and the rest of the liquid is gonna be my&nbsp; secret ingredient — V8 juice, or equivalent.&nbsp;&nbsp; Tomato juice with other vegetable flavors in&nbsp; it. This stuff makes a fantastic sauce base&nbsp;&nbsp;
and I don't care if anyone thinks it's a cheat.&nbsp; Bring it like 2/3rds of the way up the chicken. but tomato juice has had the fibers&nbsp; strained out and I just love the smooth,&nbsp;&nbsp;
glossy finish that gives you in the final sauce.&nbsp; Plus the flavor of the V8 is a lot more complex. I'ma throw in a few ice cubes of my&nbsp; homemade demi-glace. If I didn't have that,&nbsp;&nbsp; I'd use a concentrated stock&nbsp; product, like twice this much,&nbsp;&nbsp;
but just be aware it’s very salty so you&nbsp; probably won't need any more salt in the sauce. done inside — maybe a half hour, or you&nbsp; could keep going and really soften it.&nbsp;&nbsp;
I like it just a little soft these days,&nbsp; I don't want it falling apart. Flip the&nbsp;&nbsp; chicken a few times OR cover it with a&nbsp; lid to make sure the topside gets cooked. I think I simmered this chicken a little&nbsp; over an hour. When I poke the dark meat&nbsp;&nbsp;
with my finger I can just start to feel&nbsp; the different muscles pulling apart from&nbsp;&nbsp; each other. That's the right softness for me.&nbsp; We'll still need a fork and knife, but not much. I'll taste the sauce — very intense&nbsp; because I did not use any water and I&nbsp;&nbsp;
let it reduce the whole time with no&nbsp; lid. Needs a whole bunch of pepper,&nbsp;&nbsp; a little salt. Some butter to finish&nbsp; the sauce — this makes it frenchy. Tear in some parsley leaves or something, maybe&nbsp; a few sage leaves, thyme would be great but the&nbsp;&nbsp;
big herb for me is tarragon, which tastes&nbsp; like floral liquorice. I really associate&nbsp;&nbsp; tarragon with French bistro cooking, probably&nbsp; because I almost never see it anywhere else. I'll just shake that in, get that butter&nbsp; melting gently to preserve its emulsion.&nbsp;&nbsp;
And right at the end, if you have a lemon&nbsp; around, a squeeze of juice really freshens&nbsp;&nbsp; and brightens the whole dish. That's a classic&nbsp; restaurant trick for a reason. Works great,&nbsp;&nbsp; Noodles on the side, here's a boneless thigh,&nbsp;&nbsp;
and then check how nice that lollypop leg&nbsp; looks. Spoon on a little sauce and that is&nbsp;&nbsp; a knockout of a dish that is just as good at&nbsp; home as it would be at the bistro. Sauce is&nbsp;&nbsp; super rich and complex, not bland at all, which&nbsp; is particularly important for the white meat,&nbsp;&nbsp;
which doesn't taste like much. I do like the&nbsp; meaty texture you get from it, though, if you&nbsp;&nbsp; just barely start to soften it through braising,&nbsp; but my favorite part is probably the lolly-leg.