Chicken before.
Chicken deconstructed.
(No question about whose knives those are, huh?)
De-boning chicken was MUCH easier than I imagined. This little guy was a free-range fryer.
We started with the wings. These were very easy as the knife finds it way through the joints. Onto the legs cutting through the groin area to the back and finding what the French call the "Sot l'y Laisse". Sot means "silly" or "foolish", laisse is from the verb "to leave it there". You can figure out where that's going.
Flip the bird over and give it's legs a few chiropractic cracks to get the legs out of the hip sockets. From there it's just a few slices down the backbone.
Last part is to work on the breast, first slicing out the stubborn little wish bone, then cutting the two breasts away from the bone. Viola! Done!
Taiwanese would be outraged to learn we left the chicken's butt, (the Pope's Nose) on the carcass and threw it into the stock pot.
Then we got to work. These are the dishes we made over the last two days in pictures. (Not all of them, but a few of them.)
Chicken Breast En Papillote, chicken breast cooked with carrots, leeks and red pepper in parchment paper. Served with a light lemon wine sauce. Parchment paper might just be the best stuff on the planet, Mel will agree!
Thai braised Chicken. This piece of chicken should have been a thigh, not a leg, but in the kitchen confusion our thighs got put into a marinade. Sauce is too thin but tasted wickedly good! (I tried a teeny bit.)
Chicken Saltimboca with Roquefort Mashed Potatoes. (That's a peice of proscuitto on top.)
Our sauce split, (boo!) but Chef T said our turned veg were sexy, (Yay!)
Not pictured is the Chicken Stirfry (action shot below), the Chicken Pot Pies, and Southern Fried Chicken we made. All from 2 fryers! I never even got to sample a morsel due to my poultry intolerance, but had fun cooking it all the same. This week, week 3, is more about fun, less about confusion and being overwhelmed.
Tomorrow we move on to beef, so I won't have to pack a lunch!
First picture is scary looking. :-)
ReplyDeleteBut, wow, all this food you're making looks so good! I'm impressed that you're posting it to your blog so fast too.
Yay!
ReplyDeleteI debone a chicken the right way! I do it the way you described and in that order. I admit i can't remember how I used to debone the breasts from the back, but I thought of Julia Child last week when I did it here. My Chicken adobo wasn't great (No laptop, no recipe so I followed one on the net- too vinagary) a flop with the rentals. Ah well. Win some, lose some!
Oh yes. Parchment paper is God's special underrated gift. besides making pizza perfect, It also acts as tracing paper when you need it. ; )
ReplyDelete... and covers your windows so people can't see in and makes pretty decent disposable pastry bags!
ReplyDeleteSometimes I use it to separate/protect inkjet printed photos that I mail.
ReplyDeleteEr, do you just wrap the piece of chicken in parchment paper and cook it? Loosely, tightly, how?
Loosely. We took a large piece, placed our chicken on one half and folded the other half over top. The we started on one side, folding the edge over, and over, and over working the edge into a curve, like a moon shape. When we got to the end we just gave it a few more twists and popped it into the oven.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of ways to do an Asian fish dish like this.