Making Elegant Poached Chicken

M-J’s Sauce Velouté Recipe for Elegant Chicken

Sauce Velouté for an Elegant Dinner Dish Made with Poached Chicken Breasts

M-J’s Sauce Velouté Recipe

Save the broth from poaching chicken breasts as shown in a previous post, and make elegant sauce velouté, a classic feature of French cuisine. For this recipe, I would prefer the chicken poaching liquid to contain just salt, white wine, water, and a spoonful of lemon juice.

Make a roux with about two tablespoons each of butter and flour. Stir it until light tan and bubbly.
Add about two cups of chicken broth or poaching liquid, stirring it in quickly.

Cook the ingredients until smooth.
When the sauce is very thick, slowly add a half-cup of cream and incorporate it well, cooking on low heat for another minute. I like to use bamboo tools, because they do not scratch my cookware.

Elegant Sauce Velouté, a French Classic with Many Applications

If you don’t plan to use it right away, it is perfectly acceptable to store your sauce velouté in a jar, and refrigerate or freeze until needed. Thaw the sauce slowly in a covered pan or pot, and add some white wine or champagne to taste. Cream may also be stirred-in until the sauce is at the consistency that you prefer. Dress your chicken in this elegant French sauce velouté. It is very good to have at hand for impromptu gatherings, together with some poached and sliced chicken breasts. These two ingredients guarantee you a quickly-prepared, elegant dinner party offering.
©M-J de Mesterton 2010

M-J de Mesterton’s Cornish Pasties

Cornish Pasty Made by M-J de Mesterton

I’ve been making Cornish pasties since the age of 20. My mother wrote a book about the pasty and its history which was published in 1990, but my method and ingredients differ from hers. The following is  my pasty (pronounced “pass-tee”) recipe: I will not formally transcribe my recipe and method for making pasties, because  I never use measurements. I can tell you, however, that they are made with a short crust containing both butter and lard, water, a teaspoon of malt vinegar, and unbleached, plain white flour. Since salted butter is used in the dough, add just a dash of salt to it.  I add sea-salt and hand-milled pepper to the filling, which consists of  four ingredients, diced very finely: tri-tip steak, which is always well-marbled and never tough; ordinary, high-starch brown-skinned potatoes, turnips, butter bits, and white or Spanish onions. The finely-diced beef and vegetables are tossed together in a mixing bowl with the salt and pepper before being laid upon the dough, dotted with butter and enclosed. The edges are crimped, either on top or on the side of the pasty, and a couple of well-placed slits are made in the top to allow steam to escape. The final product is brushed with a beaten egg mixed with a teaspoon of cream. The pasties are then baked in a very hot oven for close to one hour. Once the pasties have cooled for about twenty minutes, serve with an oil-and-vinegar-dressed lettuce salad. Offer Cornish cream, Spanish or Mexican Crema, or sour cream as an optional condiment. The pasties depicted here, which I made,  are the optimum size for a meal; the dough for them was shaped into a ball about half the size of a woman’s closed hand, then was rolled out and cut around a 7″ luncheon plate.  Making giant pasties just isn’t elegant, nor is it traditionally Cornish. I also make miniature pasties for parties, by using a tin can or the bottom, inner ridge of the same luncheon plate as a cutting guide. These mini-pasties are easily eaten by hand with a cocktail napkin to catch any pastry-flakes. For a basic short-crust guide, please see my Elegant Apple Pie recipe.~~Recipe and Pasty Photos Copyright M-J de Mesterton

Cornish Pasty Made by M-J de Mesterton, Copyright 2009

Potée Lorraine

Potée Lorraine
Preparation time: three hours;

Serves approximately six people:

One cup of dried white beans

1 pound of cooking sausage (Italian sausage is fine),
Two pounds of pork shoulder or pork filet, using the smoked variety if available.

Eight ounces of bacon, chopped
One ripe, green cabbage
Four carrots, diced
Two turnips or one rutabaga, diced
Two leeks, white and light green parts chopped

Ten small potatoes
Two cups of trimmed green string beans
Two onions, one of them chopped and one of them left whole, spiked with 3 cloves
Two garlic cloves, ends cut-off and then crushed
One bouquet garni

Directions:
Soak the white beans overnight.

In a large cast-iron or other heavy pot, sautée the chopped bacon. Add the onion, chopped leeks, finely diced carrots and turnips. Stir-in the crushed garlic, and drop-in the bouquet garni.
Cover the pot and allow the vegetables to sweat for 15 min. Then add the pork shoulder and cover with water. Add salt, pepper, and the spiked onion.
Simmer for 1 hour.
Cut the cabbage into quarters, add it to the pot, discarding its core. Add some water or stock and leave to simmer for another hour and a half.

Add the sausage (pricked with a needle to ensure even cooking), green beans (peeled, washed and cut into long “sticks”) and the peeled potatoes.
Add water if needed and leave to cook for 30 more minutes. The total cooking time will be about 3 hours.
Place the white beans and other vegetables in a large, sturdy serving dish. Slice the meats and peeled sausage, and place them on top. Allow your guests to serve themselves.

Elegant, Economical British Dishes Presented by Elaine Lemm on Video

Delicious, Economical British Classics Presented by Elaine Lemm

Here are three classic British recipes presented in video form by Elaine Lemm on about.com: the Cornish Pasty (a favorite in my family for four generations, which I made for English-Speaking Union parties at my house many times); Bakewell Tart (invented in Bakewell, England), an elegant dessert, the taste of which  reminds me of Danish pastry; and Irish Colcannon–a vitamin-rich, green-and-white dish that could serve as an economical meal, which contains three vegetables.

Italian Easter Pie: Torta di Pasqua

Torta di Pascua

Puff pastry or pie dough, enough to line and cover an 11-inch pie-plate

3 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 lbs. of ricotta cheese, well-strained to remove all liquid (setting the ricotta cheese in a strainer over a bowl overnight is best)

1/2 lb. mild or hot Italian sausage, sliced and lightly fried in olive oil

8 to 10 slices of prosciutto ham, coarsely chopped

1/2 lb. of diced mozzarella cheese

2 tablespoons of chopped or dried parsley

Freshly ground pepper, and salt, to taste

One egg-yolk and one tablespoon of water for glaze

Prepare your pastry. Beat the eggs into the ricotta cheese, and add the rest of the ingredients. Roll out the pastry or pie dough, and line the pie-pan with one-half of it. Pour filling into the dough-lined pan, and lay the rest of your dough on top of it, sealing, trimming, and crimping the edges. Brush the top with an egg-yolk mixed with a tablespoon of water. Make pretty slits in the top of the crust, and bake in a moderately hot 350* oven for forty-five minutes to an hour, until the top of Easter Pie is golden. Serve Torta di Pasqua either warm or at room temperature. This recipe serves 8 people.

~~Copyright M-J de Mesterton

Poulet Velouté en Croute

Recipe Using Pepperidge Farm Puff-Pastry Shells
Poulet Velouté en Croute

A deep pan with a lid is ideal for this recipe. You will also need a baking sheet.

Three boxes of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Shells, twelve shells total (variation: use M-J’s biscuit dough and line a baking dish with it, top and bottom, filled with the prepared chicken velouté)
Six boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Two cups of white wine (leftover champagne is also suitable)
One cup of water
Four tablespoons of butter
One third cup of white flour
One teaspoon of herbes de Provence
Salt and white pepper to taste
One half cup of whipping cream
Two eggs beaten with two tablespoons of water, for brushing the pastry shells

Melt one tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan. Add one cup of white wine or champagne and one cup of water, together with salt and white pepper. Poach chicken breasts in white wine and water mixture until they are fully cooked; about forty-five minutes. Remove chicken breasts from pan and let them cool to room temperature.

Sauce Velouté
In the same pan, melt three tablespoons of butter. With a wire whisk, stir in 1/3 cup of white flour. Let this brown and then add one cup of white wine, whisking continually to prevent lumps. Incorporate the cream, and stop cooking after the sauce has thickened. Add salt and white pepper to taste.

Prepare the Puff Pastry Shells

Place 12 Pepperidge Farm puff pastry shells on baking sheets, and let thaw for twenty minutes.
Pre-heat your oven to 400* Fahrenheit.
Brush puff pastry shells with egg and water mixture.
Bake for twenty minutes or until golden brown.

Slice the cooled chicken breasts into thin scallops, and return the chicken to the pan where it will be mixed with the sauce velouté, and reheated briefly on the stove.

Remove Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Shells from oven. Lift top of each puff pastry shell and fill with poulet velouté. Replace top. Bake the filled puff pastry shells in a 400* oven for ten minutes.

Serve with petit pois and vinaigrette salad. Poulet Velouté en Croute made with Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Shells is an ideal dish for brunch, luncheon or dinner. This recipe provides two servings each for six people.

Recipe Copyright M-J de Mesterton December, 2008

Elegant Roast: Tri-Tip Beef

I’ve never had a tough piece of tri-tip beef, whether it’s steak or a loin roast.
I’ll be writing a recipe for this reliable cut of beef in a couple of days. Stay tuned to Elegant Cuisine!

Tri-Tip Roast with Chunky Mirepoix, Copyright M-J de Mesterton 2008

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Tri-Tip Pot Roast with Chunky Mirepois

Marinate a tri-tip roast in a little bit of red port wine, Worcestershire sauce, coarsely ground black pepper, seasoning salt, and a little bit of your favorite oil; olive, peanut or corn oil. After a few hours, dry the roast and reserve the remaining marinade for sauce. Dust the meat with salt and pepper. This absorbs the external moisture to help in searing the roast. In a Dutch Oven, or a big, heavy pot, melt a half-stick of butter on high heat, when the butter begins to brown, lower the meat into the pot. Brown it on all sides, Add coarsely chopped onion, celery, carrots (miniature peeled carrots are perfect for this dish), and some quartered potatoes. Stir these vegetables in the pot around the roast, cooking them  until their edges are brown, and then add one or two cups of beef broth (depending upon the size of your roast)  mixed with the marinade. Stir the vegetables again, let the liquid come to a boil, then lower the heat to simmering and and cover the pot. Cook to your desired degree. I cook mine about one hour, because we like it well-done. For company, you may want to cook it medium-well, leaving the middle pink. Remove the meat and vegetables. I make gravy from what is remaining in the pot. After the meat has cooled a bit, I slice it very thinly with a very sharp Japanese ceramic knife. You can put the sliced beef on a platter, on top of a shallow pool of the gravy. Trim the beef by placing vegetables around it. If you have a warming tray, set your platter on it to keep the dish warm. Alternatively, you may arrange the meat and vegetables in a buffet-handled pan and reheat on the stove just before serving.