The Porky Gourmand

Sometime last year I had lunch at Caveau a great little restaurant in Wollongong. Head chef at Caveau is Peter Sheppard, a protege of Liam Tomlin. Anyway, the lunch special on that day was a chicken ballontine with potato puree, mushrooms, buttered spinach & cepe(porcini) sauce. The chicken was cooked perfectly, I am still trying to work on my chicken doness radar, my chicken is always seems overdone. The chicken at caveau was the best I’ve had in a while, it actually took me back to the roast chickens from Kenchic outlets in the 80′s. Back in those days Kenchic roast chickens were done so well, plus the chickens here in Kenya still tasted like chicken.

Below is what the Caveau meal looked like done by a real pro. The spinach was buttery beautiful, chicken was amazing, those two little button mushroom pieces were amazing. Can’t remember what the cepe tasted like though…

Ok back to my cooking

Flipping through Jacques Pepin La Techique, I found the technique on how to debone half a chicken to make a small ballotine. Deboning was lots of fun, it took me a while(5 mins, pro’s would do it in seconds), just make sure you have a really sharp knife, with a sharp knife you won’t hurt yourself plus you will cut through the chicken like you are cutting soft butter.

The stuffing in the ballotine is just the thigh & leg meat diced up with a little cream, coriander, salt & white pepper. Mushrooms & spinach would also be great as stuffing along with the diced chicken.

In this dish also I incorporated a carrot jus, the recipe was from Justin North’s French Lessons. I have been looking at this jus recipe for a while, just could not figure what it would taste like. Maybe just like carrots, sometimes I expect some uber-new taste experience, but I have come to appreciate when something simple just tastes like what it is. This jus is so simple, its just carrots, bit of thyme, salt, pepper,butter & water. Treat this ingredients with care & you have something beautiful. In his book Justin recommends this jus to be served with roast poultry, meats or even as salad dressing.

The chicken ballotine

• Debone half a chicken, take off thigh & leg meat.
• Dice up thigh & leg meat, add some cream, coriander, salt & pepper
• The deboned chicken will consist of the breast & lots of skin. Try & even out the flatness breast by slicing off the top. Place extra breast meat on areas of bare skin.
• Place the diced up meat on the centre. Roll up into a long sausage & tie it off with string or whatever you can think off. I used thin rolled up strips of aluminium foil(lol!). Just tie it loosely, the chicken expands while cooking…. it does.
• Season skin with salt & pepper.
• Roast in 210 degree celsius oven until done…. I did mine for about 25 minutes.
• Let it rest before you slice it up.

The carrot jus

• Take 1 large carrot, peel it. Take the peelings & put into a saucepan, also add into the saucepan about 250mls of water, a sprig of thyme. Bring this to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Drain, reserving the stock, discard the peelings. This results in a fragrant carrot stock.
• Slice the carrot finely, sweat the sliced carrot,butter & sprig of thyme in a sauce pan for a few minutes, then add the carrot stock. Simmer for about 10 minutes.
• Now grab your blender, pour stock into it & about half the sliced carrots. Whiz until smooth.
• Pass jus through a sieve, done!!!

Potato Puree

• Do it the way you like, mine was just a potato, cream,milk, salt & pepper…. Too easy

Assembly

• Jam the potato puree at centre of bowl, pour some of the jus around it. Then place three slices of chicken on top….. doneskis!!!