The winning team this week was Jesse Vergen and Terry Salmond - two very talented chefs - I can’t believe they did all of this in just 2 hours - I spent 3 and a half! They were challenged to make an upscale version of chicken wings and funnel cake. Yeah. I know. They came up with this chicken ballotine which was so juicy inside and crispy outside! The flavor of the sauces really gave it that buffalo wing taste, too! Only not in any stadium I’ve ever been to!
For the Ballotine:
Ingredients:
4 medium skin on, bone in chicken thighs.
1 Tbsp cognac
2 Tbsp heavy cream
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
1 very small egg (I used a quail egg)
Remove the skin from the chicken being careful not to tear or puncture it and set aside. Bone the chicken and coarsely chop it. Process chicken in a food processor fitted with a metal blade until it is nearly paste, add cognac, cream, parsley and season well with salt and pepper - process until smooth and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Lightly beat the egg and mix it into the meat mixture.
Lay out plastic wrap on your work surface and lay out the chicken skins, slightly overlapping spoon or pipe the chicken mixture into a log down the center of the skins leaving enough skin on both sides to completely envelop the filling. I did this with 2 skins for each ballotine - so the end result was 2 ballotines with a little of the chicken mixture left over. Before rolling the ballotines - cook a little of the filling to taste and adjust seasoning.
Next pull the chicken skin over from both sides - it should slightly overlap so that you have the chicken mousse completely covered. Wrap tightly in the plastic wrap and twist then tie the ends to prevent the water from getting into it when you poach it.
Poach the wrapped ballotines in water that is just simmering until it springs back lightly when poked with your finger. This took about 20 minutes for me. Remove the plastic wrap and blot dry with paper towels.
Heat equal parts butter and olive oil in a sauté pan over medium high heat (for better results you could use clarified butter but I was too lazy to clarify some!) Brown the ballotine until the skin is crispy and browned - continually basting with the butter/oil mixture in the pan.
Remove and slice into about 2 inch pieces
For the sauces; Emulsify red hot pepper sauce (I used both plain tabasco and some chipotle tabasco) just as you would for buffalo wings! For the bleu cheese sauce, I heated a few Tbsps each of heavy cream and sour cream and then added 2 Tbsp of danish bleu cheese - the leftover bleu cheese sauce is going on my salad! For the cherry sauce, I heated black cherries on the stove with a little thyme until they had broken down and then pureed them. You could sieve it for a smooth coulis type sauce but I left it chunkier.
For the Black Pepper Funnel cake:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp light oil such as canola
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
salt to taste
Make a well in the flour and add the egg, oil and milk. Whisk until well combined and then add the pepper. Put the batter into a squeeze bottle and squeeze over 350 degree oil. The batter will pop up the the surface as it cooks (this happens very fast) remove it from the oil when it just begins to brown, drain on paper towels and salt to taste while hot.
I did the funnel cake before browning the ballotine since I wanted to serve the chicken hot but don’t do it too long beforehand since it doesn’t keep well - it will start to get soggy so work fast!
Then plate your creation and pretend you came up with it all on your own!
An extra special thanks to Jesse Vergen for the pointers on twitter and helping me recreate this dish.
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