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Poached Chicken with Black Truffles and Garden Vegetables
Recipe by Peter Gilmore
- Steps
- Ingredients
Steps
- Set temperature controlled water bath to 68 degrees celsius. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- Finely grate 10g of the truffle with a microplane and add 70g of unsalted butter. Season to taste with sea salt and set aside.
- To prepare the chicken place the chicken on a chopping board with the backbone facing up. With a sharp knife cut the skin lengthways down the backbone. Using your hands gently ease the skin from the chicken, going around the legs first and pulling the skin to the top of each leg. With a sharp knife cut the skin from the leg leaving only the smallest hole. Continue to remove the skin using your fingers from around the breast and pull back the breast until you reach the wing tips. Pull the skin back over the wing tips as far as possible using a sharp knife to cut and release the skin from the wing tips. Reserve the skin then remove the breasts from the bird and reserve.
- Trim the skin into a large oblong cutting off any rough edges. You should have an oblong approximately 30cm x 24cm. Remove any excess fat from the skin with a sharp knife being very careful not to break the skin surface. Remove the chicken skin from the board and spread out a long length of cling film on the work surface approximately 45 cm wide and 70 cm in length. Place the chicken skin on top of the plastic up from the bottom edge.
- Place 8 thin slices of truffle across the top two thirds of the chicken skin. Place the two chicken breasts slightly overlapping in the centre with the two point ends meeting on the bottom third of the chicken skin. Open up the fillet on each breast and with a knife make a small incision down the length of each breast being careful not to cut through the breast. Place the softened truffle butter into a piping bag and pipe half of softened truffle butter down the length of each incision and fold the fillets over the butter. Begin to roll the chicken breasts in its skin until it is rolled into a cylinder.
- Roll the chicken in the prepared cling film sheet tightly to give you at least 5 layers of plastic around the chicken. Tighten each end of the excess plastic by holding as you roll to form a sausage shape. Now roll in a second layer of cling film just as you have done before. Tie a tight knot in each end of the plastic. Place in the fridge to rest. Submerge the chicken into the preheated water bath for about 40 minutes.
- To make the garlic cream, heat the milk in a small saucepan until simmering. Add the garlic and allow the milk to gently simmer for 1 minute, remove from the heat and allow to cool. Strain the garlic from the milk. Bring the milk to a simmer and add the agar agar. Whisk in well and simmer for a further 1 minute. Season to taste with sea salt and allow to cool completely on ice.
- Remove the chicken from the water bath and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile reheat the garlic cream by whisking over a low heat, add some additional milk if necessary and place in a squeeze bottle. Keep warm. Cook all the vegetables in boiling salted water starting with the leeks and onions, then add the radishes, turnips and peas. Cook until tender. Drain and dress with the remaining 30g of melted unsalted butter. Season with sea salt. Remove the chicken from its plastic wrap and slice into 4. If the chicken hasn’t completely cooked through, place in the oven for a couple of minutes.
- To serve, arrange two slices of chicken, vegetables and garlic cream on each serving plate. Garnish each chicken slice with 1 additional slice of truffle and garnish the plate with some pea and garlic flowers and okra sprouts. Serve immediately.
