When I roast a chicken, I look at it when I pull it out of the oven and think to myself okay now what? Well, after this class, I won't hesitate any more. I'll just grab my boning knife and get to work. I can proudly say that I can now quarter a chicken both before and after its cooked.
A class like this is when having a vegetarian partner is a huge plus. She took one look at the chicken and said to me "Jen this is all you". I grabbed my knife and went to work. Each team started with two whole birds: one to cook whole then break down, and the other to break down and cook in parts. We began with the bird cooked whole.
First step on this bird was to pull out the wish bone, and then cut off some other unwanted pieces that I'm sure you all don't want to hear more about. We then trussed the chicken, which is just tying it together with twine so that the chicken cooks evenly and maintains its shape while cooking. At this point, it became apparent that my partner and I were a little too aggressive at removing aforementioned undesirable parts. Our poor little chicken didn't want to be trussed...we cut off too much so the string kept slipping off...Oops! Luckily, the chef took pity on us and tied up our bird with some fancy looking boy scout knots. Then we seasoned the bird inside and out with salt & pepper.
We heated some butter until smoking in a skillet and then browned the chicken on all sides. The pan has to be very hot when the chicken is added otherwise the skin sticks to the pan and you lose arguably the best part of roasted chicken. After it browned, we rested the chicken on top of the wings we had removed and put it in the oven to finish cooking.
We took the undesirable parts and cooked them in a saucepan with chicken and veal stock, wine, and a bouqet garni. Essentially, making a stock based sauce to later plate our chicken with. For sides to the chicken dish, we crisped up some bacon then fried some mushrooms in the bacon grease and cooked some pearl onions. This chicken took about 40 minutes in the oven. When it came out we let it rest for about 15 minutes to keep the juices in. The chef demonstrated the proper way to break it down and serve it. In French cooking the proper serving is white meat bone in and dark meat bone out, or the reverse with the white meat bone out and dark meat bone in. Essentially, you cut the chicken so that you have 4 plates, 2 of each style. We started by removing the legs then we sliced the breast off the neck. Mine came out okay. I think its one of those things that need to be practiced a few times before one can make any sort of outrageous claims of perfection, or at least thats what I'm telling myself. The important part is that the chicken and the sauce were delicious. We took the stock sauce that we had strained and reduced and served it over the chicken for our dinner. It was the best meal we have had yet at the school, if only because it was the fruits of our own labors rather than those of other students. I also really liked the sauce...it seems that everything we make with veal stock I love. The flavor is just so much richer than other sauces.
We made another chicken after break that we ended up taking home. This was the chicken that we had previously quartered. When breaking down this chicken we started with the wishbone as well. Then we removed the wings and cut off the thighs, removed the backbone, then split the breasts. Sounds easy but its one of those things that I think I'll need pictures of the steps the first few times. Again, we browned the chicken in heated butter in a skillet and finished it in the oven. In the pan that we browned the chicken we cooked some sliced mushrooms and then shallots. And this time I got my chance to flambe! I gently put the brandy in the pan off the heat and then with my best go-go gadget arm tilted the pan until the brandy flames shot up and died down. We then added some wine, some of the sauce from the earlier chicken, and diced tomato. I loved this sauce even more than the first one...it had such a wild mushroomy, tomato, and rich beef flavor to it. I kept taking spoonfuls of it, leaving very little for my partner to take home for her boyfriend. My partner hadn't seen this and I had the assistant chef vouch for me that I just over-reduced the sauce...he he! Oops, but then again she did give away my potato chips on Monday!
Next up is beef and veal!
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