Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 94

Another month, another cooking class! This month's recipe is Organic Chicken Stew and a pear almond tart with cinnamon ice cream. The chicken was pretty easy to prepare (and I've made it already for Tom for dinner) but you'll see pretty quickly that the tart is pretty involved.

We start, as normal, with the dessert (it tends to take the most time since in many cases, it has to be cooled and then cooked). We first did the tart dough, which we kneaded by hand. Then out of the bowl onto plastic film and closed up. That then went into the chiller while we did a few other things.

He showed us how to do the poached pears, although the real ones we used were done the day before since it takes a bit too much time for the class. But in cold water, you add lemons cut in half. This is important since without it, the pears would turn brown. We peeled the pears and removed the bottom part of the core but left the top on it. Take the pear and rub a lemon over it (again, keeps it from turning brown) and then into the water. The last one shown is mine :-)

We then need a syrup mixture (just water and sugar brought to a boil), and add in a cinnamon stick and the pears. You can also see that a couple people went ahead and cut them in half and removed the seeds (either works). You can also see the little browning that started occurring on a few that didn't get them rubbed properly with the lemon.

Then we need to get them covered without air .. to do this, you take cooking paper, fold into a triangle, and cut around so you get a circle the right size. Also cut a little tiny bit out of the middle. Then later that on top, pushing down so that you get it in contact with the water. Then cook 90 minutes at low heat and cool to room temperature. This is why we used ones pre-prepared.

Next up, the almond cream. He said that basically almost every tart or french pastry uses the same almond cream, so you can match large batches of it and use it for lots of things. You whip together powdered sugar (confectionary sugar, or as he calls it, Icing sugar) with softened butter, add in almond poweder and eggs. Once smooth, that also goes into the chiller.

While everything is cooking and cooling, we then turned our attention to the chicken stew. He started with a whole chicken, and I do mean whole! None of the headless/feetless ones that we get in the US. Nope, head, beak, eyes, toes, the whole thing. He then took us through how to prepare it. First off came the head and neck, the feet (from basically the knees) and the last part of the wing. Those he set aside to make a broth with later.

Then he removed the wishbone. He said that this was really the only main bone and if people were doing things like table-side preparation, not having the wishbone in there made it much easier.

Next he removed the leg and thigh, but also added it a little "coin" of meat from the back, which is supposedly very tasty and tender. You can see it in the last picture if you look closely at the upper-right corner of the thigh. Then separate the leg from the thigh.

We then took the breast off of the bone, using a technique similar to fileting a fish, but including the little part-wing that was left.

Here is what we ended up with.

In the pot, pan-sear the chicken with olive oil (skin side down) and adding butter to give it a nice golden brown color. Start with just the thighs and legs, since the breast takes less time to cook. Don't turn it until you get a nice, crispy brown skin. Then flip it over and cook for only about a minute on the other side. You don't want to overcook it.

Take them out and then add onions, mushrooms, and garlic just long enough to sweat them. Deglaze with white wine and cook until the wine has gone. Add the chicken legs and thighs back in (wait on the breasts, again, they take less time), along with chicken broth. Cover (but not all the way, see there is a little gap) and cook for about 15 minutes under low heat.

To go along with the chicken, we had a bunch of seasonable vegetables (baby carrots, baby potatoes, asparagus, and french beans) that we blanched. The blanching in the ice water is extremely important (he says) as it keeps the color in the vegetables. If you don't, you end up with bland-looking veggies. Yes, that means that you now have cold (but brightly colored) veggies, which you heat up quickly right before you serve.

Back to the chicken, and you add cream and cook another 15 minutes. You add in the chicken breast just at the end for about 5 minutes so you don't overcook it.

Back to the tart! Out tart dough has been cooling so we take it out and roll it into a thin sheet, then cut a circle out larger than your tart tin. These were just rings (no bottoms). You gently press the tart dough in while sitting it on the counter so that you get a nice tart shape. Then with a knife, trip off the excess on top. They then all went on a baking tray covered with a silicon baking mat and popped into the oven for just 4 minutes. Cool them before the next step.

Then the almond cream goes into a piping bag and gets piped into the cooled tart rings.

Take a poached pear and let it dry just briefly. If it is whole, go ahead and cut in half and remove the core. Then slice it (all the same size slices). Fan the slices as you lay them on top of the almond cream. Back in the oven for 10 minutes, and then cool a bit before serving. We topped with cinnamon ice cream which they made earlier for us.

I mentioned before that you re-heat the veggies just before serving. We prepped them all after coming out of the ice bath and then heated them in a saucepan, with butter of course!

And now the finished dishes.... They started us with bloc fois gras and a fig salad, then our chicken with the creamy sauce, the green veggies, and pealed spring potatoes. I don't have a picture of the dessert (yea, I forgot to take the picture before I ate it!)