Holiday Meal

This year I chose to do something a little different for the holiday meal and make a chicken ballottine. This a classic French way of preparing birds, its very similar to a galantine but with a different cooking technique. A Ballottine is normally a bird, chicken in my case, it is completely boned out leaving the skin and meat intact. The next step is to make a filling known as a forcemeat. it is stuffed, trussed then roasted and served hot. another close way of stuffing and cooking a bird is called a galantine which is prepared the same way but poached and served cold.

To start I made a stuffing of ground raw dark chicken meat, raw Italian sausage, panko bread crumbs, prosciutto ham, pine nuts and fresh sage, I used my kitchen aid mixer to mix all the ingredients together. For the bird I started by completely removing all the bones and laying the chicken skin side down, next the stuffing is evenly spread all over the chicken, the chicken is gathered up and trussed in the form of a whole intact chicken. Next is to roast the bird till it reaches a internal temperature of 170F. I served the chicken with mashed potatoes, pan gravy and shaved sauteed brussel sprouts.

Stuffed Chicken with Mashed Potatoes