Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Chicken and Mushroom Roulade
On Saturday I had a long chat with Dennis Healy about mushrooms and mushroom picking. This is a very common past time in most parts of Germany and an absolute obsession in the Czech Republic where my mum is from. Especially during communist time foraging was a great way to enhance the family diet during summer and autumn and my grandparents were true masters at this art. It is with great joy that I remember my grandmother's roast chicken or duck with wild mushrooms, wood pigeons with herb stuffing and endless variations of fruit-filled dumplings, to this day one of my favourite deserts.So when Dennis had a box of lovely chanterelles for sale I not only had to get some, but also pick his brain on where to find my own here in the Dublin area. And much to my surprise, he shared readily his secret location: the Wicklow mountains. And after Jenny confirmed that there are indeed mushrooms to be found there I am determined to rent a car some time soon and head out there to revive my childhood obsession with all fruits of the forest. But until then, I will use what is on offer at the market to experiment. I want to use my grandmother as an inspiration, but I would never try to imitate her. In my memory she is the best cook on earth, so any attempt to be like her would appear like delusions of grandeur. But having been raised during the war in occupied Czechoslovakia and lived in a communist country all her life she lacked the variety of ingredients and the foreign input necessary to become inventive. She was a master of old-fashioned home cooking, but she never experimented with flavours. I sometimes fear that I am the opposite - I experiment before having mastered the basics. Occasionally, however, I get the mix just right, for example tonight when, using my grandmother's roast chicken as a base, I came up with a chicken and mushroom roulade with garlic gravy. Yum!
2 chicken breast fillets
1 small onion, cut into wedges
1 carrot, cut into chunks
4 garlic cloves, left whole and lightly crushed in their skin
a few springs of thyme
1 bay leaf
75ml white wine
a drizzle of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a handful of dried mushrooms (for best results use mushrooms that you picked and dried yourself, they are much more flavoursome than the store bought ones), soaked in 100ml hot water
100g button mushrooms, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
a pinch of cumin
wild mushrooms of your choice (the more the merrier), thickly sliced
salt and pepper to taste
200ml chicken stock
if you prefer a thick gravy, you will also need 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp flour
your choice of accompaniments
Warm a large shallow frying pan over medium heat. Add the chopped mushrooms to the dry pan and cook gently until they have released all their liquid and have turned into a thick pulp. Remove the dried mushrooms from the soaking liquid and squeeze thoroughly, saving the liquid. Chop finely and stir into the mushroom pulp. Also add the thyme and cumin and season with a little salt and pepper.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place the onion wedges, carrot chunks, garlic, thyme and bay leaf in a medium roasting tin. Pour in the white wine.
Lay the chicken breasts out on a cutting board, skin side down. Cut a pocket into the thicker part of each breast starting from the centre and working out toward the edge. Stuff the pockets with the mushroom mixture and roll up the chicken breasts into tight roulades. Tie them into place with cotton strings. Season with salt and pepper. Arrange the chicken breasts on top of the vegetables in the roasting tin and lightly drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the oven, basting occasionally until the skin is crispy and the centre of the meat is cooked, about 40 to 45 minutes.
In the meantime prepare your gravy. If you want a thick gravy, make a roux. Heat the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When it is beginning to bubble stir in the flour and cook until you have a golden brown paste, about 2 minutes. Pour in the soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms, stirring well to prevent lumps from forming. Add half of the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Cook gently for about 10 minutes, then remove from the heat and set aside. If you like your gravy thin, simply mix the mushroom liquid and chicken stock and bring to the boil. Cook to reduce by about half, then set aside.
About 2 minutes before the chicken is done, begin preparing the wild mushrooms. Heat some olive oil in a shallow frying pan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and fry until golden and soft, about 5 minutes.
When the chicken is cooked, take it out of the roasting tin, remove the string and leave the chicken to rest in a warm place while you are finishing the gravy. Pour any excess fat out of the roasting tin and place it on a medium hob. Deglaze either with the reserved chicken stock (in case of a thick gravy) or half of the mushroom-stock-mix (for a thin gravy). Bring to the boil, then pass it through a sieve into the rest of the gravy. Press down on the vegetables, especially the garlic to squeeze the pulp into the gravy. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve alongside the chicken and vegetables.
Christine at 10:34 pm
