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!!!

Inspired by Jacques Pepin’s Tart Carree from his book “La Technique(Complete Techniques)”.

This tarts were amazing, banana & custard(creme patissiere) is one of my favourite flavour combinations.

Puff pastry shell

I used frozen Puff Pastry bought at Nakumatt, not as good as home made one. The commercial varieties use random vegetable oils/fats instead of butter.

2. Cut puff pastry into squares.
3. Fold into triangle
4. Measure & mark about 1 cm into border of square sides of triangle. Cut along marked line.
5. Unfold, you should have square piece of pastry in the centre & large strip of pastry bordering the centre piece.
6. Brush outer edges of centre pastry with water.
7. Now the tricky bit.Fold outer pastry onto opposite edge, aligning its border with that of centre pastry.Trim edges.
8. Using a fork, poke numerous holes in centre pastry to stop it from rising.
9. Baking in 220 degrees oven for 20 minutes, then set aside.

Creme patissiere (Pastry Cream)

• 3 Egg yolks
• 100 mls milk
• 100 mls cream
• 25 grams plain flour
• 50 grams caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence

2. Combine milk, cream & vanilla essence in sauce pan bring to boil, then set aside.
3. In a bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar then whisk it silly. It will take a while. What you want is a mixture very pale, double in volume, thick consistency. Mixture should come down like a ribbon off the whisk(hard to explain)
4. Fold flour into egg yolks sugar mixture.
5. Take 1/3 of milk mixture, combine into egg sugar mixture in bowl.
6. Add egg sugar mixture from bowl, add to saucepan contain mill mixture.
7. Place saucepan on medium heat, whisk slowly until it thickens to shiny thick custard. This takes about 5 minutes. Set aside in fridge until ready to use

Caramel

• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup water

2. Combine in pan, heat until colour changes to hazelnut brown.

Assembly

2. Pour thin layer of caramel on the bottom of puff pastry shells. The caramel adds some crunch & also stops pastry from getting soggy
3. Spread creme patissiere(pastry cream) inside pastry shell
4. Arrange fruit on top of pastry shell
5. Dust with icing sugar & cinnamon