Help please! My chicken casserole was a disaster.

Depending on the weight of ingredients, adding 500 ml of water seems a lot . All your ingredients will contribute more liquid and cook in about 20 mins, no time for liquid to be cooked off. Chicken thighs don't really lend themselves to being chunky, hence the stringy texture, perhaps chicken breasts would have
worked better.

I too suspect that you did nothing wrong, and that the meat was far poorer quality than usual.

I cook casseroles in the oven in a covered dish, and do not brown the meat first, and using warm air, I set the temperature at 180 centigrade for 45 minutes, or in an ordinary oven 195 degrees for the same lenght of time.

One of the best ways of cooking chicken though, or indeed any cheap stewing lamb or other meat is to use a tagine - the north African earthenwear dish with a funnel shaped top.

Chop whatever vegetables you want to use, lay them in the greased base of the tagine, lay the meat on top, salt it very well, add whatever else you want of spices, for instance coriander and pepper, sprinkle the meat lavishly with cooking oil, and about 2 dl of cold water and pop it in the heated oven at about 195 degrees for an hour or so.

The good thing about this method is that all the ingredients retain their taste and form, and you don't need to check the dish whilst it is cooking, but can take a rest, or a bath or do whatever else you want, while it cooks.

I only ever buy chicken breast filets and sear them before the cooking process which is normally a curry. From experience, slow cooked chicken does break up and turn stringy.

Thighs can be chewy. I would’ve slow cooked in the oven.

Your recipe sounds fine to me.

I'm wondering if the quality of the chicken has let you down .
If it went stringy then it had been left on the hob for too long ,but should have been delicious.
My daughter thickens her dishes by taking out a ladle or two and liquidising it then adding it and reheating .
This produces a far tastiest dish than using flour .
Rather than waste it-turn it into a stock .

I recently made Chicken Chasseur. It was horrible. Same recipe I have used for years. Definitely the quality of the chicken.

Some white wine might help but supermarket meat and poultry has probably gone down hill. We have a lovely Irish butcher down the road but he’s quite rightly expensive for the quality. So we have to buy basics from the supermarket like most of us. Sorry it turned out stringy. I have experienced the same recently.

I recall days when my Grand.a used to say that a stringy chicken was an old layer which had died of natural causes and only good enough for the stockpot .
If a chicken has white stripes or a hard 'woody "breast then it's a fast growing variety .
There's been so many complaints about the quality of chicken over the last couple of years .
Only the chicken from Waitrose has survived the criticism .

Okay..needed more seasoning.Take little sips of it..add more if neccesary.Oxocube...Chicken is a bit tasteless...bit of gravy mixture...

Thank you gnetters. I still had some chicken thighs lurking in the freezer. Cooked them in the oven, this afternoon, and now have a tasty casserole with tender chicken. I didn’t brown anything, just chucked in the veg and chicken with a stockpot, a little water and a can of condensed chicken soup, some thyme and some black pepper. I’ve always been a brown the meat first person but this way is so much less faff and it tastes fine to me.