Chicken with Maroilles sauce

We were in the north of France recently and had lunch with a friend who had prepared a regional dish of chicken legs with Maroilles sauce. Maroilles, named after a town, is a very pungent soft cow cheese that is produced in the Avesnois region in the north.
Our host, Nathalie Banckaert, made the dish with chicken legs cooked in a stock with wine and made the sauce from cheese, cream and wine and she presented it with noodles.
In “my” version, I braised chicken tights in butter, deglaced with 3 Monts beer from the north, and put shallots and cheese in the remaining cooking juices for a sauce. I presented it with potatoes.
If you do not have Maroilles, another pungent cheese like Epoisses, Pont l’Evêque, Livarot, a Belgian Hervé or Dutch Rommedou will do, or a « Limbuger ». For the beer, any strong brown beer is fine.

Ingredients

• Four chicken tights (the top of a leg, without the drum stick)
• 150 grammes of Maroilles
• Two shallots
• Large glass of beer
• 200 grammes of small potatoes
• Pepper, rock salt
• Butter.

Steps

1. Put butter in a skillet and braise the chicken legs for 20 minutes, adding pepper and salt to taste.
2. Put the unpeeled potatoes in a pan with plenty of salted water and cook for 15 minutes.
3. Take the chicken form the skillet and drain the potatoes, put aside.
4. Slice the shallots and return to the remaining fat in the skillet, cook for several minutes then deglaze with beer, allow to evaporate.
5. Slice the potatoes in two lengthwise.
6. Put slices of cheese in the skillet, stir into a sauce.
7. Put potatoes in a serving dish with sole rock salt, add the chicken and pour the sauce over the meat.