Chicken Chasseur (with WHAT juice??)

[00:00] but I've been making chicken chasseur a  lot at home lately — French-style hunter's   chicken — and I just think it's an almost  ideal fancy home-cooked meal. Here's how I'm  

[00:13] making it lately. I've got a secret ingredient  that might offend the frogs, don't tell them. Traditionally you use skin-on chicken pieces. Buy  them already cut up if you can, but I'm just gonna  

[00:25] cut up this 4 pound, 2 kilo chicken myself.  My way is neither quick nor elegant but it's   easy. Cut that skin between the leg quarter  and the body, and then I dangle the chicken   by the drumstick. The tension opens up the hip  joint and makes it easy to slice right through.

[00:41] Once it's off, I'll separate the drum from  the thigh. Slice behind the knee there and   then I pick it up and crack it open —  dislocate the joint so you can slice   the rest of the way. You could cook the  thighs whole but I'm gonna debone them.  

[00:55] Just go down the length of the femur  to open everything up, get under the   bone with your knife and it doesn't have to  be pretty, just get that bone out of there. To make the breasts easier I'll make a  couple slits on each side of the wish bone,  

[01:07] reach in there, dig around and just lever  the whole thing out like that. Start at   the apex and peel the meat off a little at a  time, following the rib cage with your knife. When I get down to the shoulder joint  I just crack it open so I can get  

[01:21] through with my knife and there's a  breast with wing. Save the carcass. I'll need a heavier knife for this  part. Just to fancy up the legs,   I'll go straight down to the bone, just below  the meaty part, circumnavigate the whole tibia  

[01:34] there and then scrape down to the ankle which I  will finally remove by just popping through the   bone — a little smack on the spine of the knife  gets you through. Those will cook up real pretty. so I dislocate the elbow and cut  through. A boneless skinless breast  

[01:52] with the drummette attached makes a very pretty  presentation. They call it an "airline breast." There's the meat, but you could cut it  much more crudely or buy pre-cut pieces.   All these scraps I will freeze to make stock  later because I am now one of those people.

[02:08] Enough pepper and salt to season both sides — I'm  leaving extra on the board for the other side.   And this is a good amount of flour — enough  to coat the chicken AND thicken the sauce.   Toss to coat everything. There we go, they  look like little pillows, little clouds,  

[02:22] like the cloud I sleep on — a premium  mattress in a box from Helix Sleep,   sponsor of this video. Hey, March  is National Sleep Awareness Month.

[04:19] Anyway, a good coating of olive oil in my  widest pan, or render some bacon in there   if you want. I'll lay the chicken skin-side  down. My heat is very high because there's a   lot of mass here cooling it back down again.  Real quick I can slice up some mushrooms.  

[04:34] cooked and I want this extra couple  tablespoons of flour for thickening. I'll do a real quick chop on a shallot.  That's it. Is the chicken ready to flip?

[04:48] It releases real easy from the bottom of the  pan, so probably. Man, look at that beautiful   color from the flour, plus it’ll help the  chicken kinda merge with the sauce later.   Brown the other side. Don't worry about  cooking the meat all the way through yet.  

[05:03] Just stop before the stuff at the bottom of the  pan starts to burn — that would ruin the sauce. Take the chicken out to a plate or something, and  then I'm just gonna put all these veggies in at   once, with the flour — it's amazing how well they  all cook together, IF you give it some extra olive  

[05:17] oil or butter or something. The mushrooms and  flour will suck up a lot. Just get a little color,   look for the mushrooms to shrink by about half  and that's all the headstart this stuff needs. Time to deglaze, and lately I'm using dry vermouth  for this. You could use normal white wine,  

[05:33] but the fortified wine just has a lot more taste  to it, and I think this dish can sometimes be a   little bland — it just needs an extra boost  the vermouth provides. Even the dry stuff is   pretty sweet tasting, which brings a lot to the  dish. That’s like a whole glass of vermouth.

[05:48] Once the bottom of the pan is clean  I'll throw the chicken back in,   and the rest of the liquid is gonna be my  secret ingredient — V8 juice, or equivalent.   Tomato juice with other vegetable flavors in  it. This stuff makes a fantastic sauce base  

[06:02] and I don't care if anyone thinks it's a cheat.  Bring it like 2/3rds of the way up the chicken. but tomato juice has had the fibers  strained out and I just love the smooth,  

[06:14] glossy finish that gives you in the final sauce.  Plus the flavor of the V8 is a lot more complex. I'ma throw in a few ice cubes of my  homemade demi-glace. If I didn't have that,   I'd use a concentrated stock  product, like twice this much,  

[06:29] but just be aware it’s very salty so you  probably won't need any more salt in the sauce. done inside — maybe a half hour, or you  could keep going and really soften it.  

[06:42] I like it just a little soft these days,  I don't want it falling apart. Flip the   chicken a few times OR cover it with a  lid to make sure the topside gets cooked. I think I simmered this chicken a little  over an hour. When I poke the dark meat  

[06:59] with my finger I can just start to feel  the different muscles pulling apart from   each other. That's the right softness for me.  We'll still need a fork and knife, but not much. I'll taste the sauce — very intense  because I did not use any water and I  

[07:13] let it reduce the whole time with no  lid. Needs a whole bunch of pepper,   a little salt. Some butter to finish  the sauce — this makes it frenchy. Tear in some parsley leaves or something, maybe  a few sage leaves, thyme would be great but the  

[07:27] big herb for me is tarragon, which tastes  like floral liquorice. I really associate   tarragon with French bistro cooking, probably  because I almost never see it anywhere else. I'll just shake that in, get that butter  melting gently to preserve its emulsion.  

[07:42] And right at the end, if you have a lemon  around, a squeeze of juice really freshens   and brightens the whole dish. That's a classic  restaurant trick for a reason. Works great,   Noodles on the side, here's a boneless thigh,  

[07:57] and then check how nice that lollypop leg  looks. Spoon on a little sauce and that is   a knockout of a dish that is just as good at  home as it would be at the bistro. Sauce is   super rich and complex, not bland at all, which  is particularly important for the white meat,  

[08:12] which doesn't taste like much. I do like the  meaty texture you get from it, though, if you   just barely start to soften it through braising,  but my favorite part is probably the lolly-leg.