With food intolerances (the lack of friendly carbs) and health concerns (being advised to say "not tonight" to my long term affair with red meat), chicken has taken a rather central place in my life of late, as it is usually easily available, even free range organic ones. I must shamefully admit though that there are times we can't have it, as we have become so precious about our chicken that we would only buy from an approved providers list - nothing quite matches a moist whole roasted or steamed chicken, just a little pink (gasp) but sinfully juicy, sweet and tender.
In my quest to take the humble chicken to the next level, I came upon chicken galantine. However, deboning and stuffing a whole chicken only feels like an accomplishment the first time you do it (my debut was only a couple of months ago); after that all the initial sense of excitement and novelty wears of, as with other things in life. To recreate that feeling of initiation, I decided to tart up my chick by dry brining it, deboning it, stuffing it, tying it and then stuffing homemade white truffle spread under the skin - basically about every technique I have learnt about preparing roast chicken. Not surprisingly, this was staged over a three day period as it is christmas season and we are unnecessarily more busy than usual.
The verdict: two chicks brined for 24 hours then deboned the day before serving. Day of serving, stuff with stuffing (genius) then stuff truffle spread under skin, tie then roast. But the skin was not crispy and the truffle did not come through, and worse of all it was declared "good but not quite up to the usual standards". Perhaps it was the limelight and pressure of hosting. Or simply perhaps my chickens preferred to stay humble...
For those wanting to make homemade truffle oil spread, mix room temperature 100g sunflower spread with 3 tbsp truffle oil and some grated truffles..to be used for another recipe as the high water content prevents skin from crisping up.
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