French-Week 3, 4, and 5!

Happy Family Day everyone! I have been procrastinating for a while and fell behind on my French class recipes.  I figured that it would be a good time to catch up with my blogs during the long weekend.  

Week 3. Suprême de Volaille, Rossini (chicken breast stuffed with liver pate)

Ingredients
2 pieces of chicken breasts, supreme
2 shallots, chopped
goose liver pate
1.5 cups of demi glace
1 cup of red wine
salt/pepper, oil


 Method
 1. remove the bones in the chicken chest, prepare 2 chicken breasts, cut a pocket in each breast and stuff it with liver pate
2. add oil in pan, heat it up
3. sear the chicken breasts until light brown with hot oil (when lay chickens down in the pan, skin side down first)
4. transfer the browned chicken into a baking tray, bake at 400F for 25min
5. remove excess oil from the pan, and sweat the shallots 
6. add red wine to deglaze the pan
7. add demi glace, salt/pepper to adjust the seasoning

*the chicken was served with glazed carrots, using ginger ale as the source of sugar. 



Week 4. Paupiettes de Saumon St. James Mousseline (seafood stuffed-salmon rolls)

Ingredients
1 lb of salmon fillet
Mousse (the stuffing):
200 g bay scallops
100 g crab meat
1 shallot, chopped
1 leek stalk, chopped
3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup of 35% cream
2 sheets of nori (the seaweed for sushi), damped with water
salt/pepper, oil

Method
1. cut salmon fillets into strips
2. to prepare the vegetable mixture, add oil in a pan and heat up, sweat the shallots, garlic, and leek
3. in a food processor, add scallops and cream to make it to a smooth paste
(scallops are high in protein, so the paste should be quite thick. In case the paste turns out to be too liquidy, you can always add an egg)
4. squeeze out all the juice in the crab meat and add it into the food processor
5. add the vegetable mixture to the seafood paste, add a pinch of salt/pepper, stir everything together
6. spoon the stuffing onto the salmon strips, and roll it up. To make it Asian-fusion, wrap the salmon rolls with the seaweed nori. Now the rolls look like giant sushi! 
7. bake the rolls at 425F for 30min

Week 5. Coq au Vin (braised chicken)

Ingredients
1 whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
4 slices of bacon, chopped
1 cup of button onions
2 packages of button mushrooms
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups of red wine, dry
a shot of Brandy
1.5 cups of demi glace
salt/pepper, oil, parley for garnish

Method
1. pre-heat oven to 400F
2. add oil to a pan and heat up, brown the chicken on both sides. Then transfer the chicken to a casserole baking dish
3. remove excess oil from the pan, then add the chopped bacon
4. once the bacon turns crispy, sweat the onions, and add mushrooms
5. add red wine into the pan to deglaze the bottom, add Brandy and demi glace. Bring the liquid to simmering, and adjust the seasoning with salt/pepper
6. pour everything from the pan to the casserole dish that has the chicken, then bake it at 400F for 40min

*it's better to marinate the chicken with red wine the night before, to make the meat more flavourful and tender