Black, Black Box: Competition Preparation with Stuffed Chicken Legs

In a flash of overconfidence, mixed in with a little insanity, I have decided to enter a culinary competition. I’ll be entering with one of my classmates from culinary school, but we’ll be competing individually. It’s a black box challenge: we’ll be given a mystery box containing four or five ingredients, probably one or two proteins, one or two vegetables and/or fruits, and a starch. We will have three hours to create a three-course meal, highlighting these ingredients and utilizing others provided in the kitchen. I’ll admit it: I am terrified. My classmate and I have been practicing and trust me, three hours goes by a lot faster than you’d think. To be honest, my goal at the moment is just to finish the competition, never mind coming up with anything I would be proud to present.

All right, so maybe I am selling myself a little short. I know that I can do this, I just need to be mentally prepared. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few tricks up my sleeve either, which is why I have been practicing a number of dishes that I plan to pull out if I am given certain ingredients. One protein that I am likely to get is chicken, mainly because it is cheap, and also because you really need to work with it in order to produce something really tasty. If I do get a chicken, it is likely that I will make Ballotines de Poulet, an impressive little composition consisting of a deboned, stuffed chicken leg, braised in a rich sauce. It’s a very classic, culinary school-type dish that, most importantly, tastes really good.

The stuffing is a combination of sautéed carrot, celery, and shallot, mixed with breadcrumbs and eggs. The legs are then tied up to give you neat, sort of sausage-like, chicken rolls. The rolls are browned in a hot pan, then set aside while you work on the braising sauce.

The sauce is a rich combination of golden mirepoix, wine, brown stock, tomato paste, and thickened with beurre manié, a raw combination of butter and flour. The chicken then gets returned to the pan, and it braises in the oven for half an hour. The braising liquid keeps it moist, tender, and flavorful.

When the chicken is cooked through, it is set aside while the final sauce is prepared. The braising liquid is strained into a clean pan and reduced. Lardons (bacon that has been blanched, then crisped), sautéed pearl onions, and sautéed mushrooms are then added to the sauce, and it is served with the sliced chicken.

As you can see, I also served mine with pan-seared Brussels sprouts this time, but I wouldn’t do that in the competition. In fact, I have since made this dish again in a competition practice, and made some minor adjustments to save time, and refine the dish a little: I didn’t thicken the initial braising liquid with the beurre manié. The final sauce was reduced slightly, seasoned, and then monté au beurre, meaning finished with the addition of raw butter. It made for a wonderful sauce, not heavy at all, but rich and with a deep, savory flavor.

I may not do perfectly on this competition, but at least I’ll be going in there with a few ideas, and a few things I know I can do. No matter what happens, it will be an experience worth living, one I’m sure I won’t regret.

Ballotine de Poulet (Stuffed Boneless Chicken Legs)
Adapted from Professional Cooking, 6th ed., by Wayne Gisslen
Serves 4
4 chicken legs, skin on, thigh and drumstick pieces attached
1 oz. shallot, finely chopped
½ oz. carrot, finely chopped
½ oz. celery, finely chopped
½ oz. butter
2 oz. fresh white bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
Salt and pepper

1 fl. oz. vegetable oil
2 oz. onion, small dice
1 oz. carrot, small dice
1 oz celery, small dice
5 fl. oz. white wine
1 oz. tomato paste
2 cups brown stock (dark chicken stock or beef stock)
1 oz. beurre manié* (optional—use if you prefer a thicker sauce, rather than a thinner reduction)
Salt and pepper

(If making it Grandmère-style)
3 oz slab bacon
2 oz pearl onions
4 oz. button mushrooms
2 oz. butter (if not using the beurre manié)

Debone the chicken leg by slicing carefully along the thigh and drumstick bones. Gently scrape the meat off the bones, trying to keep the meat as much in one piece as possible. When possible, remove the bone completely from the meat. This video gives a decent demo.

Sweat the shallot, carrot, and celery in the butter until softened. Cool. Combine with the breadcrumbs, and add just enough egg to make a soft, but not to wet consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the bone cavity of the chicken legs with the stuffing, then roll up the legs to enclose the filling. Use butcher’s twine to tie the rolls securely.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat the oil in a large, shallow pan. Brown the legs on all sides, then put aside. Add the onion, carrot, and celery to the pan and cook until golden. Deglaze with the wine, and reduce until it is almost all evaporated. Stir in the tomato paste and stock, and bring to a boil. If using, drop in the beurre manié in small pieces.

Return the chicken legs to the pan; the liquid should come no more than halfway up the sides of the chicken. Bring it to a boil, then place, uncovered, in the oven for about 30 minutes, until cooked through. Baste the legs occasionally with the braising liquid. Remove the legs from the liquid and tent with foil. Strain the braising liquid into a clean pan, and reduce to desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper. At the last minute, swirl in the butter, if using.

If doing the Grandmére garnish, cut the bacon into batonnets, about ¼” wide, and 1 ½” long. Place them in cold water and bring to a boil, then drain. Fry them until golden brown, then saute the onions and mushrooms in the bacon fat until golden.

Remove the string from the chicken and slice neatly, pouring the sauce around it. If using, garnish with the bacon, onions, and mushrooms.

*equal parts butter and flour

Rich and Delicious Chicken Stock

I did promise, didn’t I? Now that you’ve been breaking down chickens all week, you should have some chicken carcasses lying around, right? Well, hopefully they’re not just lying around. That’s gross. Refrigerate them, for goodness’ sake.

Wherever those chicken carcasses may be, I ask you now to pull them out and get ready to make some incredible chicken stock. I will warn you, though, you’re never going to be able to taste store-bought chicken stock the same way again. Even the best one will still have this slightly off background taste that tells you it isn’t quite the real deal. What is the real deal? The chicken stock I am about to tell you how to make, a staple every kitchen should have.

So I had two chicken carcasses lying around—I mean, in my fridge—so I put them into a big roasting pan.
I’m making a dark chicken stock, by the way. If you want a light one, skip the roasting step. The dark one will be much richer; the light one is good if you want a subtler flavor.

Roast the chicken bones at 375 F for about fifteen minutes so they get a head start on the vegetables you’re going to add.

Meanwhile, roughly chop your veggies. The basic essentials are onions, carrots, and celery, but you could also add leeks, parsnips, turnips, broccoli stems, mushrooms, or garlic—nearly any vegetable. Consider how it tastes and decide whether or not you want that flavor in your stock. I kept it simple this time, and used the basics:
Yes, keep all those skins, stems, and ends on. There is flavor to be extracted from every part of most vegetables, so use as much of them as you can. They go into the roasting pan with the now semi-roasted chicken, tossed with a couple tablespoons of vegetable or olive oil.
Now it all goes back into the oven for another forty minutes or so, stirring occasionally. You want caramelization—some browning—on both the bones and the vegetables.
Next, get your biggest stockpot and put the roasted bones and vegetables into it. Add some herbs; fresh is best, but dry works well too.
I used a small bunch of fresh parsley, about four whole peppercorns, a couple teaspoons each of dried rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and savory, and two bay leaves.

Now, cover it all with the coldest water you can. I add ice cubes and get my tap water as cold as possible. If you think of it ahead of time, put some water in the fridge and get it good and icy.
So, why cold? Starting food in cold water extracts flavor from the food and leeches it into the water once it begins to simmer. If you’re poaching or simmering food in liquid and you’re going to be eating the food itself, not the cooking liquid, start it in warm or hot water so that the flavors will all be concentrated in the food item. Good tip, eh?

Now, crank up the heat on that stockpot and bring the liquid to a simmer. Meanwhile, what about all that browned goodness stuck on the bottom of your roasting pan?
You definitely don’t want that to go to waste, so place your roasting pan over medium-high heat on the stovetop. Once it’s good and hot, add about ½ cup red wine and deglaze, scraping up all the browned bits on the pan. After two minutes, add the liquid to your stockpot.

From here on, it’s pretty straightforward. Once your stock gets up to a simmer, keep it there and let it cook uncovered for four to six hours. Occasionally skim the foam from the surface of the stock, and don’t let it boil—that will cause the impurities that have risen to the top of the liquid to be mixed back into it. Keep the bones and vegetables covered in liquid at all times, adding more water when necessary. Try not to add too much, though. If the stock seems to be evaporating too much, decrease the heat.

Here’s mine, early in the simmering process:
Here it is about two hours later. See how dark and delicious it’s getting?
When adequate time has passed, you’ll be ready to strain your stock. Having done this a few times, I’ve perfected my own method of doing this: first, I strain it through a colander, just to get out all the big pieces of bone and vegetable. Then, I strain it through a fine mesh strainer, and then again through the same strainer, this time lined with cheesecloth. That does the trick and gets all the bits and pieces out of my stock. Now, this might seem obvious, but I’m going to mention it anyways: strain your stock into another container, not into the sink and down the drain! I say this because every time I strain stock I’ve made, I always instinctually move to strain it into the sink—bad idea!

Anyways, so after straining, hopefully not down the drain of your sink, check out this incredible, lovely product you end up with:
Yes, it’s very dark, and in this case, that’s what we were aiming for. Again, if you want light chicken stock, skip the roasting process. That golden layer on top is fat, so I skimmed that off. When this product gets cold, it becomes completely gelatinous. This is a good thing. That gelatin is from collagen, extracted from the bones you used to make the stock, and equals rich, delicious FLAVOR!

Once again, let me just say, you will never be able to taste store-bought chicken stock the same way again.

Chicken Break-Down

Knowing how to break down a chicken is a very useful culinary skill. It's helpful for all kinds of recipes, and it will also save you money. How? Well, pull out your weekly circular for your local grocery store. Got it? Find the price for chicken breasts, thighs, wings and drumsticks. Now, find the price for whole chickens. Which one is the cheapest? The whole chicken, right? By buying whole chickens and cutting them into parts yourself, you will save yourself major bucks compared to buying the parts separately. Also, and I think that this is the best reason for always buying whole birds, is that you’re left with a chicken carcass, which you can use to make chicken stock that will be a hundred times more flavorful than anything you can buy in the store. I’ll be posting about that soon, so stay tuned.

There are downsides to this. Of course, every chicken only has two breasts, two legs, and two wings, so what are you supposed to do when you need more than that? It doesn’t seem very economical to be buying three chickens just to get six chicken breasts, does it? Well, yes and no. What I do is I try to buy a chicken whenever they go on sale. I take it home and cut it into parts and freeze all the parts separately. Eventually, I have a collection of parts ready when I need them.*

Are you convinced? Hopefully so, because I’m going to launch into the how-to of this anyways. First, you’ll want to get yourself a boning knife. It looks like this:
Other knives of about the same size will probably be OK, but the boning knife is shaped in such a way to make the job easiest for you, so it’s ideal. It’s also known as a boner. Don’t laugh, I’m serious.

Next, you will need a chicken. This whole procedure is pretty pointless if you don’t have a chicken. Say hello to Miss Chicken:
Now, you’re ready to make your first cut. The cuts you’re going to be making will mostly be on joints. It is essential that you cut at the correct spot. Otherwise, you’ll be trying to cut through bone and not only will this be very difficult, it will also kill the edge on your knife. So what is that correct spot, you ask? Well, take our first cut, for example: the wings. You will be cutting on the second joint in from the tip of the wing. Take that joint between your fingers and give it a feel. You should be able to feel a distinct spot where the joint actually is (where the two bones connect). You want to cut right on that spot, right between the bones. Right about here:

If it seems like you’re sawing through bone, it’s because you are, so try again. You should only have to cut through the tendons and ligaments holding the joint together. You should end up with one of these:
Now, you’re going to separate the breast from the carcass. Find the chicken’s sternum. It’s the bone that goes down the front of the bird and separates the two breasts. Place your knife on one side of the sternum, as close to the bone as possible, just below the neck. Now, cut into the flesh, keeping as close as possible to the sternum and going as deep as you can.
To completely remove the breast, continue to cut along the carcass of the chicken, right until just above the leg. The breast should just be attached to the rest of the chicken by the skin, so simply cut through that to cut the breast completely away. You can leave the breast as is, or you can also remove the tender from it. The tender is the thin piece of flesh on the underside of the breast. You can remove it simply by peeling it away with your hand, no knife required.
Next, you’re going to separate the leg and thigh from the bird. This picture shows the general area you’re going to be cutting:
You’re going to be cutting at a joint again, so find the joint where the thigh attaches to the body of the bird. It’s pretty deep in there, but it’s there, I promise. Hopefully, this will help (sorry, this picture is a little gross):
Just like with the wing, you want to cut through the joint, not the bone. It should give easily. Once you’ve cut through the joint, you can simply slice the thigh the rest of the way off. Then, you’ve got yourself a chicken leg:
The next step is to separate the thigh from the drumstick. Actually, this part is optional, depending on how you intend to use the legs. Sometimes you want the thigh and drumstick attached. If not, here’s what you do: turn the leg skin side down. Find the joint that attaches the thigh to the drumstick, and cut through that.
You should be getting pretty good at this cutting through joints thing now. Once you’re through the joint, you should have something like this:
Now, just cut through the remaining flesh and skin to separate the thigh and drumstick completely.

Finally, repeat all of the above steps on the other side of the chicken, and ta-da!
You have successfully broken your chicken down into parts. Congratulations. Now, use those parts however you’d like, but DO NOT throw away that carcass! Next, I’m going to show you how to make fabulous chicken stock. Trust me, you’re going to want to get in on that. Really, trust me.

*Just a quick note to say that freezing and thawing fresh meat is not ideal. It is always better to buy meat fresh and cook it as soon as you can. However, this will cost you more and it isn’t always economical time-wise either. Thawing frozen meat for everyday use is fine, just don’t let that meat hang around in your freezer for too long. For special occasions, be sure you get your meat fresh.

Cozy Comfort Food

As I am writing this, I am sitting at my desk with a pleasantly full belly, listening to the gentle pattering of rain falling against the window. Sorry if that was overly poetic for you, but I am basking in that dreamy haze one only experiences after a good, uncomplicated square meal. I’m not talking about the feeling one gets after eating something exotic or elegant. While these are notable experiences, tonight, I only want to talk about the simple pleasure of enjoying an ordinary home-cooked meal. Warm, creamy, and savory all describe the chicken I made for dinner.
Yes, I know, there is way too much food on that plate. It’s messy and unbalanced and I don’t care. It was awesome. I served the chicken I’m going to talk about with a creamy risotto of my own invention, and the incredible roasted broccoli Adam recently blogged about over at The Amateur Gourmet.

The chicken recipe comes from a Jamie Oliver cookbook. It is a chicken breast stuffed with sautéed mushrooms and garlic and parsley, wrapped in puff pastry, baked, and then finished off with a creamy Dijon-wine sauce. The tantalizing picture in the cookbook lead me to believe that this could be tricky and fussy for two reasons: first, I always seem to have trouble with stuffing chicken breasts—I always either don’t cut a big enough pocket in it, or I cut it in the wrong place, or I over-stuff it. Second, I was certain that the puff pastry would give me trouble even though I bought it in frozen sheets. I imagined it would somehow end up in a tangled, unsalvageable mess that I would inevitably throw across the kitchen in an angry fit. Not that that’s ever happened before … ahem.

ANYWAYS, as you’ve probably already discerned, none of these things happened and the recipe was a success. The garlicky mushroom filling added a welcome earthiness to the rich pastry and sauce. And also, wow, there are few things that smell better than sautéing mushrooms and garlic in a healthy chunk of butter.

Stuffing the breasts went off without a hitch. I think that actually having the right size of breast—nice, big 7 oz ones—made a world of difference. Obviously, trying to cram a bunch of stuffing into a tiny slit in a small piece of meat is just asking for trouble. Now, I can’t actually finish an entire 7 oz chicken breast on my own, but that’s what boyfriends are for!
Wrapping the breasts in puff pastry was quite easy as well. I used puff pastry sheets from Pepperidge Farms, and one sheet was the perfect amount for two breasts.

While the chicken was baking, I prepared my broccoli, risotto, and sauce. I managed to time it perfectly—usually, I always have something that takes too long, or something done way too soon, but this all came together quite well. And the chicken came out of the oven looking like heaven, ready for Andrew and me to curl up, dig in, and enjoy!


Superb Chicken
Adapted from Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver, where it was titled My Old Man’s Superb Chicken
Serves 4

6 oz of mushrooms (I used white and cremini, but feel free to experiment with different varieties!)
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 hand-full chopped fresh parsley
4 7oz skinless boneless chicken breasts
1 1lb 2oz package of puff pastry sheets (2 sheets)
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. Dijon mustard (Jamie Oliver uses whole-grain)
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup cream
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400F

Chop the mushrooms, half rough, half fine. Heat butter and olive oil over medium heat, and add the garlic and mushrooms. Sautee slowly for about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and stir in the parsley. Allow to cool.

Slice the chicken breasts lengthwise, going only about halfway through so that you create a pocket in each chicken breast. Stuff the pockets with the cooled mushroom mixture. Cut each of the pastry sheets in half lengthwise and wrap one half around each of the chicken breasts. Don’t worry about it being perfect—just do your best to cover as much of the chicken as possible. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg, and cook in the preheated oven for 35 minutes.

While the chicken cooks, heat the mustard and wine in a small saucepan. Simmer and reduce until you can no longer smell the alcohol—ten minutes or so, but use your nose. Stir in the cream and simmer until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve one breast per person and drizzle with the sauce.

If you liked this post--or even if you didn't--please leave me a comment and let me know. I'd love to hear what you think!