main · Cooking course

Ingredients

• Chicken — 1 pc
• Thyme — 10 sprigs
• Celery — 2 stalks
• Carrot — 2 pcs
• Onion — 2 pcs
• Butter — 120 g, softened
• Salt — to taste
• Black pepper — to taste

Sauce

• Garlic — 1 clove
• Bouquet garni — 1 pc
• Madeira — 200 ml
• Chicken stock — 250 ml

Glazed vegetables

• Zucchini — 200 g
• Daikon — 200 g
• Zucchini — 1 pc
• Sugar — 10 g
• Butter — 80 g
• Chicken stock — 250 ml
• Salt — to taste
• Black pepper — to taste

Roasted potatoes

• Potato — 200 g
• Garlic — 3 cloves
• Vegetable oil — to taste
• Butter — 70 g
• Salt — to taste
• Black pepper — to taste
• Thyme — to taste

Instructions

Chicken

1. Remove the wishbone. Trim away the loose subcutaneous fat.
2. Slide your palm under the skin along the breastbone, then stuff the pocket with butter — cube by cube, working it in.
3. Season inside the pocket with salt and pepper, or stuff the cavity. Push thyme inside, pull the skin back, and tuck the edge under.
4. Salt and pepper the outside. Reserve a piece of fat from the breast.
5. Truss: cross the drumsticks, thread the string along the body, and tie on the opposite side. Trim any neck-skin remnants.
6. Pour a little oil into a ceramic dish and place the bird inside.
7. Make a mirepoix: finely chop celery, carrot, onion (cut lengthwise into eighths). Surround the bird; scatter with thyme.
8. Roast at 185 °C for 40 min.

Roasted potatoes

1. Halve the potatoes; place in a bowl. Salt, pepper, drizzle with oil.
2. Toss, transfer to a roasting dish. Dot with butter. Crush the garlic and add. Scatter a few thyme sprigs on top.
3. Slide into the oven so it’s done at the same time as the chicken.

Glazed vegetables (additional)

1. Cut carrot into balls with a Parisienne scoop. Roughly chop the leftover.
2. Cut onion and celery the same way to make a mirepoix.
3. Heat a sauté pan; add a piece of chicken fat and let it render. Add leftover carrot, onion, celery. Top up with a little oil; stir.
4. Sauté ≈5 minutes until caramelised. Crush garlic and add. Add the bouquet garni, then the Madeira.
5. Reduce, stirring.
6. Add chicken stock; bring to a boil. Simmer gently ≈30 minutes until reduced by half.

Chicken (cont.)

From time to time baste the bird with its rendered fat. Stir the potatoes occasionally.

Vegetables again

1. Cut daikon into balls with the scoop.
2. In a sauté pan put sugar, butter, a splash of liquid (stock or vegetable juice), salt, pepper, the vegetable balls. Stir.
3. With the zucchini, leave the skin on and scoop out balls too. Wait until carrot and daikon soften slightly.
4. Strain the sauce from the first pan.
5. Add the zucchini balls to the second pan.
6. Back to the chicken — baste it with the juices.
7. Mount the sauce: drop in 1–2 cubes of cold butter, swirling the pan vigorously.

Serving

1. Take the chicken out, free it from the trimmings and string. Separate the legs; split drumstick from thigh.
2. Take out the potatoes; place a couple of halves in the centre of the plate.
3. Each plate should have both white and dark meat — breast and a leg piece. Carve some breast and lay it on the potatoes.
4. Pool the sauce around the plate.
5. Add the glazed vegetables. Serve immediately.