Chicken chasseur (with WHAT juice??)

0:00 I think I've cooked it on the internet before,

0:02 but I've just been making chicken chasseur a whole lot at home lately.

0:06 French style hunter's chicken.

0:08 And I just think it's an almost ideal fancy home cooked meal.

0:12 Here's how I am making it lately.

0:14 I've got a secret ingredient that might offend the frogs.

0:17 Don't tell them.

0:18 Traditionally, you use skin on chicken pieces.

0:21 Buy them already cut up if you can,

0:24 but I'm just going to cut up this 4 lb 2 kg chicken myself.

0:28 My way is neither quick nor elegant, but it's easy.

0:31 Cut that skin between the leg quarter and the body,

0:33 and then I dangle the chicken by the drumstick.

0:36 The tension opens up the hip joint and makes it easy to slice right through.

0:41 Once it's off, I'll separate the drum from the thigh,

0:44 slice behind the knee there, and then I just pick it up and crack it open.

0:48 Dislocate the joint so you can slice the rest of the way through.

0:51 You could cook the thighs whole, but I'm going to debone them.

0:55 Just go down the length of the femur and open everything up.

0:58 Get under the bone with your knife, and then it doesn't have to be pretty.

1:01 Just get the bone out of there.

1:03 To make the breasts easier,

1:05 I'll make a couple slits on each side of the wishbone,

1:07 reach in there, dig around, and just lever the whole thing out like that.

1:11 Start at the apex and peel the meat off a little at a time,

1:15 following the rib cage with your knife.

1:17 When I get down to the shoulder joint,

1:19 I just crack it open so I can get through with my knife, and there.

1:22 That's a breast with wing.

1:24 Save the carcass.

1:25 I'll need a heavier knife for this part.

1:27 Just to fancy up the legs,

1:29 I'll go straight down to the bone just below the meaty part.

1:32 Circumnavigate that whole tibia there, and then scrape down to the ankle,

1:36 which I will finally remove by just popping through the bone.

1:40 A little smack on the spine of the knife gets you through.

1:43 Those will cook up real pretty.

1:45 With the wings, I want to remove everything below the humerus,

1:48 so I dislocate the elbow and cut through.

1:51 A boneless, skinless breast with the drumette

1:53 attached makes a very pretty presentation.

1:55 They call it an airline breast.

1:58 There's the meats, but you could cut it

1:59 up much more crudely or buy pre-cut pieces.

2:03 All these scraps I will freeze to make stock

2:05 later because I am now one of those people.

2:08 Enough pepper and salt to season both sides.

2:10 I'm leaving extra on the board for the other side.

2:13 And this is a good amount of flour,

2:15 enough to coat the chicken and thicken the sauce.

2:17 Toss to coat everything.

2:19 There we go.

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4:19 Anyway, a good coating of olive oil in my widest

4:21 pan or render some bacon in there if you want.

4:24 I'll lay the chicken skin side down.

4:26 My heat is very high because there's a lot

4:29 of mass in here cooling it back down again.

4:31 Real quick, I can slice up some mushrooms.

4:34 Yes, the board is still dirty, but all of the stuff is going to get cooked

4:37 and I want this extra couple tablespoons of flour for thickening.

4:41 A couple of carrots sliced into thin rounds and then

4:43 I'll do a real quick chop on a shallot.

4:45 That's it.

4:46 Is the chicken ready to flip?

4:48 It releases real easy from the bottom of the pan, so probably.

4:52 Man, that is a beautiful color from that flour.

4:54 Plus, that flour will help the chicken kind of merge with the sauce later.

4:58 Brown the other side.

5:00 Don't worry about cooking the meat all the way through yet.

5:03 Just stop before the stuff at the bottom of the pan

5:05 starts to burn because that would ruin the sauce.

5:07 Take the chicken out to a plate or something and then I'm

5:10 just going to put all these veggies in at once with the flour.

5:13 It's amazing how well they all cook together if you

5:16 give it some extra olive oil or butter or something.

5:19 The mushrooms and the flour will suck up a lot.

5:22 Just get a little color.

5:23 Look for the mushrooms to shrink by about half

5:25 and that's all the head start this stuff needs.

5:28 Time to deglaze and lately I'm using dry vermouth for this.

5:31 You could use normal white wine,

5:33 but the fortified wine just has a lot more taste to it

5:36 and I think this dish can sometimes be a little bland.

5:39 It just needs an extra boost that the vermouth provides.

5:42 Even the dry stuff is still pretty sweet tasting,

5:44 which brings a lot to the dish.

5:46 That's like a whole glass of vermouth.

5:48 Once the bottom of the pan is clean, I'll throw the chicken back in and the rest

5:52 of the liquid is going to be my secret ingredient, V8 juice or equivalent.

5:57 Tomato juice with other vegetable flavors in it.

6:00 This stuff makes a fantastic sauce base and I

6:02 don't care if anyone thinks it's a cheat.

6:05 Bring it like 2/3 of the way up the chicken.

6:07 You could use a can of pureed tomatoes or something,

6:10 but tomato juice has had the fiber strained out and I

6:13 love the smooth glossy finish that gives you in the final sauce.

6:17 Plus, the flavor of the V8 is a lot more complex.

6:20 I'm going to throw in a few ice cubes of my homemade demi-glace.

6:24 If I didn't have that, I would use

6:25 a concentrated stock product like twice this much,

6:28 but just be aware it's very salty,

6:31 so you probably won't need any more salt in the sauce.

6:33 Get that simmering and you could cook it

6:35 until the chicken is like just done inside,

6:38 maybe a half hour, or you could keep going and really soften it.

6:42 I like it just a little soft these days.

6:45 I don't want it falling apart.

6:47 Flip the chicken a few times or cover it

6:49 with a lid to make sure that the top side gets cooked.

6:52 Boil some egg noodles toward the end.

6:54 I think I simmered this chicken a little over an hour.

6:57 When I poke the dark meat with my finger,

6:59 I can just start to feel the different muscles pulling apart from each other.

7:03 That's the right softness for me.

7:06 We'll still need a fork and knife, but not very much.

7:09 I'll taste the sauce.

7:10 Very intense because I did not use any water

7:13 and I let it reduce the whole time with no lid.

7:16 Needs a whole bunch more pepper, a little salt, some butter to finish the sauce.

7:20 This makes it Frenchy.

7:22 Tear in some parsley leaves or something, maybe a few sage leaves.

7:26 Thyme would be great, but the big herb for me is tarragon,

7:29 which tastes like floral licorice.

7:31 I really associate tarragon with French bistro cooking,

7:34 probably because I almost never see it anywhere else.

7:37 I'll just shake that in, get

7:38 that butter melting gently to preserve its emulsion, and right at the end,

7:43 if you have a lemon around,

7:44 a little squeeze of juice really freshens and brightens the whole dish.

7:48 That is a classic restaurant trick for a reason.

7:51 Works great even in things that you think wouldn't taste well with lemon.

7:54 Noodles on the side.

7:56 Here's a boneless thigh, and then check how nice that lollipop leg looks.

8:00 Spoon a little sauce, and then that is a knockout of a dish that is

8:04 just as good at home as it would be at the bistro.

8:07 Sauce is super rich and complex, not bland at all,

8:10 which is particularly important for the white meat,

8:12 which doesn't taste like much.

8:14 I do like the meaty texture you get from it,

8:16 though, if you just barely start to soften it through braising.

8:20 But, my favorite part is probably the lolly leg.