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Poulet de Bresse au Vin Jaune et aux Morilles
Bresse chicken in a vin jaune and morel cream sauce, with rice pilaf
1h30
Serves 4 to 6
Intermediate
Chicken & sauce
- 1 Bresse chicken
- 1 sweet onion
- 1 small garlic clove
- 40 cl vin jaune
- 30 cl chicken stock
- 40 g dried morels
- 40 cl cream (crème de Bresse or 30% cream)
- 20 g flour
- salt and pepper
Rice pilaf
- long-grain rice (basmati or jasmine)
- 1 onion
- chicken stock (2 volumes per 1 of rice)
- bay leaf and thyme, butter
A great Jura dish, and a Christmas main. The chicken is deboned and cooked in stages so the legs braise long and the breasts stay tender, all in a vin jaune and morel cream sauce. Serve it with a simple rice pilaf. Freeze the carcass for a future stock.
Method
Prepare the chicken
- Debone the chicken into breasts, legs (drumstick and thigh) and wings. Freeze the carcass for a future stock.
- Season the pieces on both sides, flour them lightly, and brown them in foaming butter.
Build the sauce
- Rehydrate the morels. Sweat the chopped onion and garlic in the pan juices, adding a little oil if needed, then add the drained morels and deglaze with the vin jaune. Reduce the morel soaking liquid separately in a small pan.
- When the vin jaune has reduced a little, add the chicken stock and the cream. Add the thighs and drumsticks and cook uncovered over low heat for 30 minutes.
- Cover and cook another 30 minutes. Uncover, add the breasts and the reduced morel liquid, and cook about 15 minutes more.
- Lift out the chicken. Reduce the sauce to the consistency you want, then finish it with a last splash of vin jaune.
Rice pilaf
- Sweat the chopped onion in butter. Add the rice and stir to coat it in the butter (nacrer). Pour in the stock, using two volumes of stock per volume of rice, and add a bay leaf and thyme.
- Cover with a round of parchment and cook in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 11 minutes. Dot with butter, rest 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork.
Background
Cooking the chicken in stages is the trick. The legs need the full braise to be tender, while the breasts go in near the end so they stay juicy.
Reduce the morel soaking liquid and add it back. It carries a lot of the mushroom flavour that would otherwise be lost.
Mistakes I've Made
- Cooking it all at once. Add the breasts only for the last 15 minutes, or they dry out while the legs finish.
- A thin sauce. Reduce the sauce properly at the end. The flour on the chicken and the reduction should carry it, helped by the cream.
Sources
- Poulet de Bresse au vin jaune et aux morilles —