Chicken Roulade

Another nice, easy but elegant recipe.

Roulade basically means "roll" in french. The purpose of this dish is to have very juicy pieces of chicken with a nice crispy skin around them without roasting anything. The first step is simple: buy one chicken. No, not alive. Well at least mine was a classic supermarket chicken...

The first thing to do is to skin the chicken. The skin is very important for this dish and you have to take it off the chicken as intact as possible. If you don't know how to do it, I recommend watching youtube videos on it or if you want me to make a video of "how to skin a chicken", let me know in the comments!

When you have your skin, just let it rest on the side. Now, remove the 2 breasts and clean them. I recommend taking off the wish bone first to make it easier. Once again, if you want a video I'll show that too.

Lay down the skin on plastic film and place the filet on the skin on top of each other. Roll the skin around the filets and then roll the plastic film around the Roulade as tight as possible. Seal the two sides with string and now it is sous-vide. You should have something like that:

As the 2 breasts will stay apart, you can just dust Activa on the skin and breast if you find some. This powder creates a fusion between the proteins: the 2 breasts will become one as they cook.

Put the roulade sous-vide in water at 65°c for one hour. After that, remove the roulade from the water and take it off the plastic film. If you have a fryer, just drop it in a very hot oil for few minutes until the skin is crispy. If you're like me and don't have a fryer, just heat up olive oil in a pan and place the roulade. Turn it often until the entire skin is crispy with a nice golden color.

Then let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing it. 

I served mine with leek, but I should have also done a purée (sweet potatoe I think). I roasted the rest of the chicken while cooking the roulade so I used the juice from the roasted chicken as a sauce in this dish.

Enjoy! :)

Magret de Canard au Thé

I know: duck again. What can I say? I just love it and my girlfriend loves it even more. And this bird is way too expensive in Norway so I bought a lot before I came back from France. But this is so delicious I could actually eat only duck everyday... The lady agrees. If you can find some wherever you live, the recipe could be a great idea for your Valentine dinner guys.

For the recipe, you need (2 pers):

• 1 duck breast fillet
• 4 potatoes
• 8 asparagus
• 1 shallot 
• 30 cl milk
• 10 cl white wine
• 2 bags of earl grey tea
• white grapes
• Nutmeg
• Sugar / Salt / Pepper

Peel the potatoes, put them in a saucepan with enough water to cover them and bring to boil until they are ready. It should take approximately 15min but to make sure, stick a fork in the potato and it should go through very easily. Remove the water, mash the potatoes, add salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg powder and pour milk until you get a soft puree. If it's too liquid, just keep the puree over low heat to reduce it. To cook the asparagus, bring to boil water with salt in a saucepan and put them in it for 5 minutes so I recommend to cook them just at the end.

Use a sharp knife to score across the duck breast through the fat but just barely to the meat. Rub the skin with salt and pepper. Put it in a preheated frying pan, fat down over medium-high heat for 6 minutes and turn it on the meat side for 3 minutes. Put it in another pan with 1/3 of the grease and store it in the oven (low heat, just to keep it warm) covered with aluminium foil. While the duck rests in the oven, deglaze the frying pan with the white wine over a medium heat and add the shallot finely chopped. Put the 2 earl grey tea bags in a cup and fill 1/3 of it with boiling water. Wait 1 minute, press the tea bags to get all the flavor in the water and throw them away. Add the tea in the frying pan. Peal a dozen white grapes and put them also in the pan with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Let it reduce until the sauce thickens, add a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper just before serving.

Take the duck out of the oven and cut it in few slices, the meat should be pink and not bloody. The bitterness of the tea in the sauce with the sweetness of the grapes really work with the duck.

Are you going to cook for Valentine's day? If you need any advice or idea, just comment this post:)