ESCOFFIER GOURMET CHICKEN
Pot-roasted chicken with champagne morel sauce and pilaf rice.
Pot roasted and draped in a morel mushroom and champagne sauce, this Auguste Escoffier style technique to cook chicken is great for any special occasion. The chicken is stuffed with morel mushrooms and pot roasted which delivers a super moist and tender chicken infused with the smoky, earthy flavours of the mushrooms. But it doesn’t stop there. After the chicken is cooked, the chicken cooking juices and morels are used to create a sensational sauce with a stock plenty of champagne.
INGREDIENTS
To cook the chicken
At least 50 g (1.8 oz) dried morels mushrooms
1 tbsp butter to sauté the morels
50 g (1.7 oz) shallots (finely diced)
Salt and pepper to season
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 kg / 3.5 lbs (good quality whole chicken)
100 g (3.5 oz) clarified butter or ghee
100 g (3.5 oz) onion (finely diced)
100 g (3.5 oz) carrot (finely diced)
50 g (1.8 oz) celery (finely sliced)
For the sauce base
500 g chicken carcass or chicken wings chopped in small chunks
1 tbsp cooking oil
50 g (1.8 oz) carrot (roughly diced)
50 g (1.8 oz) onions (roughly diced)
20 g (1 oz) celery (roughly diced)
2 button mushrooms (quartered)
30 g (1 oz) butter
1 branch of thyme
1 garlic clove (bruised)
1 bay leaf
50 ml (1.7 fl oz) champagne
1 tbsp flour
500 ml (17 fl oz) brown chicken stock
Salt and pepper to season
For the sauce
The cooked morels and cooking juice from the chicken
125 ml (4 fl oz) champagne
300 ml (10 fl oz) sauce base
200 ml (7 fl oz) cream (heavy)
1 tbsp fresh parsley
Salt and pepper to season
For the chicken rice
50 g (1.8 oz) butter
100 g (3.5 oz) onion (thinly diced)
300 g (10.5 oz) jasmine rice
450 ml (15 fl oz) white chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 twig of thyme
Salt and pepper to season
Notes
Reduction times for the sauce - 5 minutes after the sauce base is added and at least 10 minutes after the cream is added.
Cooking time for the chicken: around 1h 20 Mn at 190 degrees Celsius / 380 Fahrenheit 10 minutes. For the last 10 minutes of cooking, remove the lid and cook uncovered for a golden roasted color on top.
MISE EN PLACE
Remove the chicken about half an hour before use so it comes to room temperature. Pat the chicken dry with a kitchen towel and truss if required.
Measure and prepare all the ingredients. Soak the dry morels in 150 ml boiling water and leave to rehydrate for 30-40 minutes. You also need to have 500 ml of quality white chicken stock and 500 ml of brown chicken stock at the ready. To win time, you can use premade organic stocks. Prepare the clarified butter.
Method
To make the sauce base
Sear the chicken carcasses in a stockpot or heavy bottom saucepan with the oil for 10-12 minutes over medium-high heat until the meat has a dark brown color but is not burned. When done, scoop out the meat pieces and set aside.
In the same pot, reduce the heat to medium and add the vegetables, herbs, garlic, and butter. Mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes, then immediately deglaze with the champagne. Reduce for a few minutes, scraping the bottom of the pot to detach the caramelized juices, until the liquid becomes semi syrupy.
Now add the chicken carcasses back to the pot and sprinkle over the flour. Stir the ingredients together, then pour in the boiled brown chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper and if you want, ladle in some liquid from the morels soaking in the bowl. Simmer for 15-20 minutes.
To cook the chicken
While the sauce base is simmering, preheat the oven at 190C/400F, then rinse the morels thoroughly under running water to remove any grit.
In a pan over medium- high heat, sauté the shallots in the clarified butter for 2-3 minutes, then add the morels, season, and leave to cook for around 3 minutes, stirring constantly. When ready, turn the heat off and stir in the parsley.
Position the trussed chicken on a clean chopping board and fill the cavity with the morels. When done, pierce the chicken skin with a wooden skewer to close the cavity, then season the chicken generously on all sides.
In a cast iron pot over medium heat, add 2-3 tablespoons of clarified butter and lightly sear the chicken on all sides to give it a golden color. When done, transfer the chicken to a plate and switch the heat off. Add the vegetables garnish to the pot and mix gently over the residual heat. Place the chicken over the bed of vegetables.
To finish, spoon a few more tablespoons of clarified butter over the chicken, pop the lid on and transfer to the oven. Set your timer to 1 hour 20 minutes. To prevent the chicken from drying out, during cooking, remove the pot from the oven every 30 minutes and baste the chicken with the butter.
For the last 10 minutes of cooking time, baste the chicken one final time and cook uncovered to roast the top of the chicken.
When cooked, transfer the chicken to a dish and remove the morels from the cavity. Pour the cooking butter from the chicken through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl to remove the aromatics and set aside (this is liquid gold, full of flavour, that you will use for the sauce).
To make the chicken pilaf rice
In a medium size saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then sauté the onions for 5 minutes. Add the rice and mix it through the butter and onions until the rice becomes translucent.
Pour in the chicken stock, add the bay leaf, thyme and season with the salt and pepper. Raise the heat to high and bring the liquid to a simmer before turning the heat off.
Place a paper cartouche inside the pan so that it rests on the rice. Cover the pan with a lid and cook in the oven at 190C/400F for up to 17 minutes.
When done, the rice should be tender and well puffed. If not, return it to the oven for a few more minutes. When cooked, leave the rice to stand covered for 5 minutes, then discard the paper cartouche and herbs.
Make the morel and champagne sauce
While the rice is cooking, it is time to make the sauce. Spoon some of the fat from the chicken cooking juice into the same cast iron pot used to cook the chicken. Add the morels and cook over high heat for a few minutes then deglaze with the champagne. Leave to reduce for a few minutes, then pour the sauce base over. Mix well and leave to boil for 5 minutes.
Now add the rest of the chicken cooking juices and the cream and leave to reduce for a further 10 minutes on a light boil to allow the sauce to thicken. When done, turn the heat back to low, adjust the seasoning if needed, and stir in the parsley to finish the sauce.
Serve the chicken in a large dish on a bed of the chicken rice with the sauce on the side to ladle over.
TIPS
The rule of thumb to time the cooking of a whole chicken is to allow roughly 30 minutes per 500g/1 lbs.
Morel mushrooms: If like me, you can’t afford truffles then morels are the next best thing and much more affordable. You don’t need to live near a forest to source them. The dehydrated version can be easily found online and taste exceptional when rehydrated and cooked.