Recipe : Roast Chicken with Duxelles

If you cook this right, the meat will be incredibly soft, tender and juicy. Don't pull out the chicken skin before roasting. It helps keep the meat moist, the stuffing in and adds a lovely texture and flavour to the dish.

Since I roast chicken in the microwave on convection setting, I've found that roasting it covered for 2/3 of the time helps keep most of the moisture in.

Ingredients:
1 roasting chicken with skin - around 1kg
1 quantity duxelles (from 400gm mushrooms) at room temperature
1 tsp salt
juice of 1 lime
a little butter or olive oil for basting.

Method:
Clean the chicken well, especially the inside and dry
Rub the chicken with a mixture of lemon juice and salt, both inside and outside and keep for 10-15 minutes.
Stuff the chicken with the duxelles and if you can get the skin loose, pack some duxelles between the skin and the flesh.
(My butcher here in Ahmedabad, ends up tearing the skin when he de-feathers the chicken and unless I clean my chicken myself, I have to make do with what I'm given)
Baste the chicken with a little melted butter or olive oil.
Roast in a preheated oven at 200C for about an hour and a half.
Keep an eye on the chicken as it roasts and increase or decrease the time as needed.

You can serve your chicken completely coked but moist, or slightly crispy.

I've made this a home style roast chicken, but you can obviously make this a much neater dish, by trussing the chicken once stuffed.

If you are roasting it uncovered in a regular oven, you can cover the wings and the final leg joint with foil until half cooked, to get an even colouring all over.

Recipe : Duxelles - Vegetarian / Vegan - Stuffing / Pate

I first heard about Duxelles on the first season of Junior Masterchef Australia, and the concept of  minced mushrooms cooked in butter seemed so tasty that I had to look it up and try it for myself.

There are a multitude of recipes for Duxelles online, but I took a look at ingredients that were easily available to me and what would suit our tastebuds and this is the final recipe that I came up with.

Ingredients:
1 medium onion
6 - 8 cloves garlic
400gms fresh button mushrooms (the kind most easily available in India)
2 pinches of herbs of your choice - thyme, parsley, tarragon
3 tbsp butter (vegans can use olive oil)
1/2 tsp olive oil
salt to taste

Method:
Finely mince the onions, garlic and mushrooms (separately)
In a pan, heat the butter with the oil (the oil will prevent the butter from burning)
Fry garlic till slightly soft, then add onions and fry till completely soft.
Fry on a low heat, so everything cooks without turning brown.
Add mushrooms, when mushrooms are half cooked, add the herbs.
Keep cooking on a low flame until the mixture turns into a spreadable paste.
Now adjust salt.

Use it as a spread on toast or for stuffing chicken, beef wellington, puff pastry or savoury tarts.
Kim's tips:
The trick to cooking duxelles is to keep the fire low and stir constantly, so that everything cooks into a paste, rather than crisping up.

Its critical to wait until the end to adjust the salt, because the mixture really shrinks in quantity and the flavours get very intense. If you salt it at the beginning, you will very likely end up with an over-salty duxelles.

If you plan to use the duxelles as a stuffing, don't scrimp on the butter, it will be needed to keep the meat moist.

Duxelles keeps well in the fridge for at least a week. Reheat  and stir well before using.