Chicken Ballottine

I love chicken and I am always looking for a new and exciting way to prepared it. I was watching Essential Pepin and watch him bone a chicken. It looked pretty easy, so I attempted it. It turned out really well. You can stuff the chicken with what you like. I made a spinach, sausage & dill stuffing. I would suggest serving this dish with yukon gold mashed potatoes. I copied Jacque's sauce recipe. However, I added grated garlic and dry Spanish Sherry to the mix.

Stuffing:

2 garlic cloves minced
1 small package of baby spinach
2 hot Italian sausages casings removed
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese grated
1/2 cup of sour dough bread crumbs
4 cremini mushrooms diced
1 shallot diced
1 lemon zested
2 tablespoons of fresh minced dill weed
juice of one lemon
salt & pepper

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and add the garlic, shallots and sausage. Cook until the sausage is rendered and add the rest of the ingredients. Set aside to cool.

You will now need to bone out a whole chicken. There is many websites that show you how to do this. You can watch Jacque's show too or ask your butcher to do this.

Lay the chicken skin side down and lightly salt and pepper. Spread the cooled stuffing on top of the chicken and proceed to roll up and tie with kitcken twine. Lightly dust with herbes de Provence and salt, pepper. Place fresh bay leaves on top of the chicken secured underneath the twine.

I think it is very important to do this step, but you can skip it. However the skin will not be as crisp.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat a roasting pan on your stove and add some olive oil. Brown the roast on all sides. Now place the roast into the oven and bake for 45 minutes.


Sauce:

1/2 cup of stock
1/2 cup of dry red wine
1 very small onion diced
1 carrot diced
1 celery stock diced
1 clove of garlic grated
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of dry Spanish Sherry
1 tablespoon of Wondra Flour

Skim off and discard some of the fat from the pan drippings. Add the drippings to a frying pan and heat on medium high. Add the diced vegetables and saute until they are soft. Now add the stock, wine, soy, sherry and grated garlic to the pan. Cook out some of the wine for five minutes. Now add the wondra and you have a really tasty sauce to pass over the roast.