Chicken Ballotine Instructions

You'll need:

• 4 lb chicken
• sharp paring knife
• Cutting board
• chefs knife
• a piece of paper towel
• 2 gallon freezer bag for finished bird, if not being cooked soon
• a freezer bag for the bones, for stock - a 4 lb. chicken will yield about 1.5 lbs of bones (taking up about 1/3 of a gallon)
• a 9 ft. piece of cotton kitchen twine; not nylon, it will melt.
• 2 small pieces of aluminum foil, roughly 3"x5"
• salt and pepper
• 2- 2.5 cups of stuffing - recipes below. (Don't put hot stuffing into a cold chicken)
• 2 Tbsp of butter, optional/as needed


1. Remove the wishbone. Cut off and reserve extra fat from around the cavity opening.

2. Cut off wing tips at elbows/ 2nd joint. Set aside for stock.

3. Put chicken on its breast. Make a long slice down the entire length of the back, cutting just through the skin.

4. Using your fingers, slowly pull back the skin to expose the shoulder and thigh joints. Use your knife as necessary to cut any sticky bits; your fingers can do most of the work. Take care to leave the skin intact.

In the next few steps you'll work to free the carcass from the meat and skin by cutting through the leg and wing joints.

5. On the top of the shoulder, about an inch on either side of the neck is where the shoulder joint attaches to the carcass. Ease you knife into that joint; you can feel when you hit bone, reposition your knife until you find the crease in the joint and sever the shoulder from the carcass. Repeat on the other shoulder.

6. Make a half-circle cut where the thigh bone joins the carcass to pick up the scallop of meat there. Once you've cut through all the meat and tendons surrounding the joint, bend the leg back against the carcass to get the joint to "pop" out. Run your knife through the joint to cleave it from the carcass.

7. Make a series of small cuts along the length of the carcass to free it from the breast meat. Use your knife to cut around the keel bone and pull the carcass from the meat and skin. Add it to the stock pile.

8. Run your fingers under the loins to remove them from the carcass. Expose the end of the loin sinew with a knife. Use a bit of paper towel, if needed, to hold down the exposed end of the sinew and scrape along the sinew to free it from the loin. Set loins aside.

9. Crack the ankles with back of chef's knife.

10. Expose the top knob of the thigh bone with the tip of your paring knife. Make cuts parallel to the thigh bone to expose it. Using back of knife, scrape bone down to the knee. Cut through tendons around the knee joint, above and below the joint itself. Scrape leg bone down to the ankle and pull out bone, adding it to stock pile. Repeat on the other leg. The legs are now like rolled up socks; starting with the knobs of bone at the ankles, push them right side out.

11. Lay chicken, skin side down, in one flat layer. Add loins back to any areas that are lacking meat. It might be necessary to slice a bit of the breast meat off and use those pieces to fill any voids. You want an even layer of meat. If you're using a vegetarian stuffing, add chopped pieces of reserved fat (or failing that, butter) to the breast area. Season chicken with salt and pepper.

12. Spread stuffing into legs, taking care to fill the voids left by the bones you just removed. Spread the remainder of the stuffing in the center half, down the length of the chicken. Fold the edges of the breast skin over onto the stuffing.

13. Start trussing by tying one end of your string around one of the ankles. Place the knot so there is a stub of about 8" left on one end of the string. Use that stub to tie the ankles together. Making a simple knot loop, pass it under the chicken and tighten it gently--without distorting the roll you've just made--to the skin of the chicken about an inch and a half up from the ankle knot you just tied. Make another loop, setting this one another 1.5 inches from the previous. Do this until you get to the end of the chicken. If stuffing is coming out of the hole at the top or bottom of the chicken, use one or both of the foil squares placed under the trussing string to keep it intact.

15. Turn the chicken over. Work your way back to the ankles, looping the string around each of the knot loops as you go. Tie the loose end of the string to the ankles and you're done.


Cooking Directions

Preheat oven to 425 F. Place chicken in a roasting pan, breast side up. Baste with a little olive oil or butter. If you like, you could tuck 3 or 4 sage leaves or other herbs under the trussing string on top of the chicken.

Cook for 45 minutes, basting twice during that time. Check for doneness. A thermometer stuck into the thickest part of the meat (here it's the breast) should read 155 degrees. If the top of the breast is starting to get too brown and the internal temperature isn't yet 155, protect the excessively brown skin by covering it with a small piece of foil. Take the chicken out of the oven and let it rest for at least 5 minutes on a cutting board under a loose foil tent. During that time the temperature will have risen to 160 F.

If you're using a meat stuffing, the cooking time will be up to 15 minutes longer.

If you like you can deglaze the pan and make a simple sauce with the resulting jus.

Cut crosswise slices in long strokes, pulling the knife toward you. A thin bladed, non-serrated knife works best.

Stuffing - Two Possibilities

Ground Pork and Chicken Liver Stuffing
Enough to stuff one chicken

[This is the recipe for the stuffing used in Poulet en Saucisse, pg 389 in Pépin's Complete Techniques cookbook.]

2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
5 oz or 1 cup mushrooms, minced
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
2 large chicken livers
Same amount or weight of chicken fat as chicken livers (lumps from inside the bird)
8 oz. ground pork
1 Tbsp sherry

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion and sauté for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper. Cook until all the liquid is evaporated from the mushrooms and the mixture starts to stick to the pan (about 5 minutes). Set aside and let cool. Cut the livers and chicken fat in small pieces. Place in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the ground pork, remaining salt and pepper, and the sherry. All ingredients should be well blended and the mixture should be smooth.

The two different stuffing mixtures, mushroom/onion and proccessed meat, are later spread in separate layers onto the deboned chicken, which is rolled up, trussed, and then roasted.


Roasted Mushroom, Spinach, and Onion Stuffing
makes 2.5 cups, enough to stuff one chicken

1 pound frozen bagged spinach
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Dash of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
1 cup roasted mushrooms*, diced

Over medium heat, add olive oil to saute pan and sweat onions, just until they begin to turn brown, about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add contents of spinach bag to pan. Reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 5 min. Take off lid and cook until all moisture has evaporated, about another 5 min. Add garlic, nutmeg, and a salt and pepper to taste. Combine with roasted mushrooms.

Let cool in refrigerator before you put it in your chicken. Storing hot stuffing in a cold chicken is a bad idea.

* Recipe for Roasted Mushrooms
This is a good technique to maximize the flavor of common button mushrooms.
Yields 1 cup diced roasted mushrooms

1 lb white button or crimini mushrooms, cleaned with a damp paper towel, cut in half if small, quarters if large
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Adjust oven rack to lowest level and heat oven to 450 F.

Toss mushroom pieces with oil, salt, and pepper. Arrange them in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Roast until released juices have nearly evaporated and mushroom surfaces facing pan are browned, 12-15 minutes. Remove pan from oven and using fork or spatula, turn mushrooms so another side is facing the bottom of pan. Continue to roast until mushroom liquid has completely evaporated and mushrooms are nicely browned, 5-10 minutes more.

When finished, you can deglaze the pan with water or white wine, scraping up the brown bits. Save the resulting liquid to use in other recipes calling for mushroom flavor. Freeze it in ice cube trays and store the cubes in a freezer bag.

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Making Chicken Stock
10 parts water
5 parts chicken bones
1 part mirepoix
thyme, pepper, bay leaf (NO salt)

That's the formula. Then there's the intuitive way.

Every time you eat or cut up a chicken, save the bones in a freezer bag--cooked bones add a deeper flavor to the stock. When you get 3 to 4 lbs of bones--or the bag is full--make stock.

Put the frozen bones in a large stock pot. Cover with cold water by a couple of inches. Bring to a slow boil. Skim foam from top of water and discard. Add 2-3 washed and roughly chopped carrots, a chopped onion, a couple of stalks of celery. A couple teaspoons of dried thyme, a teaspoon of whole peppercorns, 3 or 4 smashed garlic cloves. Don't add any salt. There's no way to judge how much, especially since you might be reducing the stock later in a dish. In that case, the water will evaporate, the salt will stay, making it inedible.

Simmer for 1-2 hours at a slow boil. Strain, saving bones for remouillage (more on that soon) and cool broth. Chill covered overnight so the fat will float to top and harden. Remove the fat layer the next day. Pour stock into containers and freeze.


Remouillage
The bones still have plenty of flavor in them. Cover them with cold water and bring to a boil. Let them boil for 1-2 hours, taking care that the water doesn't run out, adding more as necessary. This stock may be cloudy, but is full of flavor as well. Strain it through cheesecloth or a fine-meshed strainer when done, throwing out the bones. Chill overnight, removing the fat. Reduce it to a syrupy consistency over high heat. Pour into ramekins or other heat-resistant containers and chill. After it sets up, cut into cubes. Freeze these individual cubes on a plate. Once frozen, you can store them in a freezer bag. Reconstitute them in a cup of hot water when you need just a little bit of stock (such as for making rice or lentils) or add them directly to a pan sauce for a jolt of flavor.