Day 46: Practice Makes Perfect With Chicken Supreme

We're back after the long weekend and are cutting up a chicken that will be used this week. Today Chef wants us to prepare stuffed Chicken Supreme with two pureed vegetable, plus another vegetable and risotto. The background for the dish today is timing. Our task is to make sure that all items are timed so that they will be completed at the same time and plated hot for serving.

Chef goes through a demo of all the components to our dish. Explaining each ingredient for every part of our dish and how to cook each. With this information we are ready to begin our chicken supreme served with vegetables and starch. Chef also wants us to make a rye bread including additional herbs as an option.

First up is making the dough for the rye, proofing it, forming it, proofing it and then baking it.

As we will need a chicken supreme for our dish, I need to cut up a chicken and debone a half breast and remove part of the wing. The idea of cutting up your own chicken is cost effective and menu planning. The chicken breasts can be used for a chicken supreme dish, while the other pieces can be used for other dishes (which we will be preparing this week).

With our deboned chicken breast we want to stuff it with farce (stuffing). To make the farce I saute onions, mushrooms, spinach, garlic and thyme seasoning with salt and pepper. I allow the farce to cool before adding half the chicken meat from a leg of chicken. The farce is processed to a smooth texture and stuffed in to the chicken breast. I made a pocket in the chicken breast by cutting into it from the wing bone area. The chicken is seasoned with salt and pepper and seared in a hot pan with oil, skin side down, to achieve a nice brown colour. To finish cooking the chicken it is put in the oven at a temperature of 375 F.

The vegetables and risotto are started so that they finish at the same time as the chicken supreme. I'm kept on my toes today trying to get everything done at the same time. I manage to not be the last person to plate and present my plate to Chef!

Too tired for homework tonight!