I have to admit I’m in a bit of a blue mood at the moment. Tracy and I recently returned from France, having spent a few lovely days at our house in the Aveyron.
Sadly these were the last days to be spent there, as we’ve just sold the property to a neighbour.
We decided to give up the property for a number of highly practical reasons, none of which, at the moment, seem to counteract the loss and sadness we feel at moving out of somewhere we desperately loved.
I’m sure that, in time, the feelings will subside, and at least it served to confirm our desire to move to France for good at some point. I feel much attuned to the culture over there, and a little warm sun on old bones is definitely the ticket.
No time for morose grumbling though, as we must dive into this week’s recipe, which is based on a dish I ate whilst travelling back up through France. We’d decided to stop for the night in Orléans, which it turns out is a wonderful little city. I’d found a good-looking restaurant on one of the handsome quais along the Loire, and so it was that we enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Le Lièvre Gourmand (The Greedy Hare), which offers a unique menu where each course is presented in two separate small dishes.
It was an often-times bewildering array of techniques and flavours, with some dishes wide of the mark, but the majority bang on target, and it’s one of those that I scribbled hasty notes about in the hotel, and which I had to try as soon as I got home.
It was a delightful chilled bowl of incredibly tender chicken, which I presume had been cooked sous-vide (a modern technique you’ll have seen on TV, where ingredients are vacuum-sealed and cooked for hours at low temperatures for astonishing flavour and texture) and then folded, taco-style, into thin sheets of just-cooked golden turnip.
The dish was finished with some crunchy alfalfa sprouts, micro herbs and a light dressing flavoured with seductive sesame oil and citrus. It was a wonderfully refreshing dish, with the complex flavours all working so well together.
Super-savoury yet still somehow delicate, and with a range of textures that dazzled the palate. So, I transcribed my hasty notes and set to converting the scrawl into a legible recipe. I don’t have a sous-vide machine (yet!) and I presume most of you don’t either, so I had to circumvent the process and find a way of making the chicken as tender as possible.
I switched to thigh meat, as this is naturally more succulent and less prone to drying out when cooking. After a night marinating in soy and mirin (rice-wine vinegar) I poached these in a stock at the lowest possible temperature until tender. The swede was poached until barely cooked, and used to layer up with the chicken. I decided I wanted a little extra flavour and texture in there, so I added some mushrooms, shallots and some water chestnuts, whose delightful crunch is unmistakeable.
We top it all off with a touch of intense flavour from alfalfa shoots, shredded nori seaweed and spring onion and a dressing made from the poaching liquor and sesame.
It may look like a difficult recipe, but it’s really not, and it makes for a delicious warm evening supper of dinner-party first course. You can play about with the peripherals - add tarragon perhaps, and don’t worry if you can’t find the seaweed or yuzu juice - but try to keep an eye on the chicken as it poaches for that seductive tenderness that the dish requires.
For the chicken:
600g free-range corn-fed chicken thighs, skinned
2-3 tbsps light soy sauce
2-3 tbsps mirin rice-wine vinegar
A little sesame oil
1 litre strong chicken stock
1 small onion, sliced
A few large pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 large golden swede
For the braised vegetables:
1 x 225g tin water chestnuts, finely diced
A large piece of fresh ginger, peeled and very finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 banana shallots, very finely chopped
2 large flatcap mushrooms, very finely chopped
For the sauce:
2-3 tbsps light soy sauce
2-3 tsp toasted sesame oil
2-3 tsp yuzu or fresh lemon juice
2-3 tbsps mirin rice-wine vinegar
To finish:
50g alfalfa shoots
A few micro-greens - celery, coriander or radish (optional)
1 sheet nori dried seaweed, finely shredded
A little finely shredded spring onion
Toasted black sesame seeds
Method:
First, pop the chicken thighs in a bag, add the mirin, sesame oil and soy sauce, seal and chill overnight.
Peel, trim and slice the swede into thin discs, or use a mandolin cutter if you have one.
In a pan, warm the stock, and add the onion, ginger and garlic. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to the lowest possible simmer.
Add the chicken and the marinade, and poach very gently for about 25-30 minutes or until the thighs are very tender.
Remove the chicken, and cover immediately with clingfilm.
Allow to cool, then chill until required.
Strain the stock into a clean pan and discard the vegetables.
Add the swede to the stock and cook until tender. Strain, reserving the stock, and chill the swede discs until required.
In a separate pan, warm the diced chestnut, ginger, garlic, shallots and mushrooms in a little of the poaching liquid and cook until just tender, but still retaining a light crunch.
Chill.
To make the dressing sauce, strain off half the remaining poaching liquid and reduce by half.
Whisk in the soy, sesame oil, yuzu juice and mirin and taste for seasoning.
To assemble the dish, carve the chilled chicken into slivers and stack up with the vegetables and swede discs.
Spoon over a little of the dressing sauce and top with the alfalfa, micro-leaves, shredded spring onion and nori shreds.
Finish with some toasted black sesame seeds.
Click here to take you back to more Lifestyle news.
To follow us on Twitter click here
