White wine Poached Chicken

You want to cook for someone special but you think it will cost you too much so you wait until an occasion comes along to prepare a good dinner. I stop you right there: it doesn't need to be expensive to make it great.
Instead of buying chicken breasts or wings, buy an entire chicken for example. It is way cheaper and you can make 3 different meals with it!

The first recipe I present you is a poached chicken. Ideal to keep the meat moist and really tender, it is another dimension from roasted chicken (which is also delicious).

Cut the legs and wings off and store them in the fridge for another dish. Place the chicken in a saucepan with one half of onion, 2 shallots cut in half, thyme, chive and bay leaves. Add 50ml of oil on the chicken, pepper and salt. Then cover until 1 cm above the chicken with 3/4 of water and 1/4 of white wine. Buy the cheapest wine you can find, as it cooks it really doesn't matter so don't waste a good bottle. Let it poach over medium heat for 20 minutes.
Take the chicken out of the saucepan (just the chicken, leave the stock in it) and cut the breast off and put the rest back in the stock (we will use it for the next dish). Heat up a frying pan with olive oil and cook the breasts until the skin has a nice crisp. Glaze regularly by putting some of the hot oil on the meat with a spoon.
Serve with any vegetables you want, I chose sautéed potatoes.

For the sauce, reduce 100ml of your stock in a sauce pan, add one shallots finely chopped, add 200ml of crème fraîche and finish with chive. There is your first meal for two, a very tender and moist chicken with a beautiful poached flavour! The two other dishes coming soon.

Valentine's dinner n°2

Bonjour à tous! Hope you had a great Valentine's day. As you can guess, mine was based on the dinner I planned to cook for my girlfriend. Nothing fancy, just a simple and romantic meal perfectly done. Don't hesitate to steal the recipes if you want to cook for her next time!

I started the menu with ginger and chilli caramelized scampi on top of a spinach salad. I wanted the two scampi to look like heart-shaped but it didn't work, but still looked delicious. Moreover, the spiciness of this light plate is exactly what you need to start the dinner.

Fry the chilli and the ginger in oil, add the scampi for approximately 5 minutes and pour just a bit of soy sauce. Prepare the spinach salad by cooking them very quickly with olive oil and salt in a frying pan, if you overcook them you'll lose all the texture so be careful.

Next on the menu was a Duck Confit on string beans and mushrooms with a red wine and blueberry reduction. Of course! I couldn't make a romantic dinner without cooking duck, we love it both too much ; and Duck Confit was the first dish I made to impress my girlfriend so I had to do it again. You can find my recipe HERE. 

This time I cooked the mushrooms in the duck fat, and for the reduction I deglazed the pan I used for the duck with 100ml of red wine then I added the blueberries and let it cook over high heat until it thickens.

And then the dessert!

I made a "very revisited" Norwegian omelette. First, place the pistachio ice cream in a mixing bowl and let it melt. Prepare the fruits you want (I wanted to use cherries but couldn't find any so I used mixed berries), add them to the ice cream and mix well. Put it a mold and store it in the freezer. Beat two egg whites until stiff and add sugar. Take the ice cream out of the freezer and cover it with a thick layer of the meringue. Brown the meringue with a cooking torch (which was my girlfriend's present to me for Valentine's day, definitely the best) and place the "very revisited" Norwegian omelette back in the freezer until you are ready to serve. Just before you do, flamber 20ml of rum and drizzle it on the dessert.

Did anyone cook for Valentine's day? Comment this post and tell us what you made:)