Chicken Galantine with Mushroom, Olive and Herb Stuffing

I love preparing Chicken Galantine because it is so much more of a technique than it is a recipe.

The end goal here is to butcher a chicken such that you can open it up flat with all its bones removed and have a relatively even layer of chicken meat and skin throughout. You then proceed to stuff the chicken with whatever your heart desires, tie at together neatly and cook it however you wish. 

I chose a mushroom, olive and herb stuffing because I love that the mushroom and the salty briny olives play off each other and the herbs complement and elevate the dish altogether.

This is supposed to be a kind of elegant, refined dish with a very beautiful presentation. Mine did not end up looking very pretty, but damn is it delicious!

Chicken Galantine atop a bed of arugula.

Recipe

You will need:

• A whole chicken
• butcher string
• Ingredients for a stuffing, below are the ingredients I used
• ~15-20 white button and/or small portobello mushrooms
• A handful or two of olives
• mint, basil, cilantro, thyme
• butter

We'll begin by preparing the stuffing since we want it to be at room temperature before we stuff the chicken.

Mince mushrooms and sauté in 2 tablespoons butter until nicely browned. Transfer to a bowl.

Roughly chop cilantro and olives then add to sautéed mushrooms. Chiffonade (roll the leaves up and slice) basil and mint leaves then add to sautéed mushrooms. Strip thyme leaves from stalk and add to sautéed mushrooms. Stir to combine the stuffing.

Rolled basil leaves for chiffonade.

Chiffonade of basil

Alright, the next part is the hard part.

Rather than give you a wall of text on how to properly debone a chicken, i'll give you a link to the video I used to learn how.

iPad in my spice cabinet with Jacques Pepin to walk me through butchering this chicken.

Take your time when doing this. I rushed a bit while following along and unfortunately punctured the chicken meat and skin near the legs on both sides. Also, if you chose to have a phone or tablet guide you during this process, I recommend wrapping it in clear plastic wrap so that you don't get raw chicken juices from your fingers all over your device.

A whole chicken, un-butchered. If you can find a small, young chicken at the grocery store, i'd opt for that!

All of the following steps up to the point of cooking the chicken are outlined in the video I've linked above. 

Here is the whole chicken, un-butchered. A paring knife will get 99% of the work done here, but you'll need a hefty chef's knife later on to crack the chicken's leg bones.

Chicken with carcass removed.

Here, the carcass has been removed (reserve that for stock) and the fillets are on the left. Once you flip the chicken over, there will be an area between the legs and the breasts where there isn't much meat. Here you'll lay the meat from the fillets down to make the thickness more uniform.

Add the mushroom, herb and olive stuffing evenly.

Flip the chicken over, salt and pepper the meat evenly and spread the stuffing around. Be sure to stuff some inside of the legs.

Roll up the chicken with stuffing inside.

Unfortunately, the legs got messed up!

Part of my message of keeping it light in the kitchen includes taking mistakes in stride and never giving up! Naturally, my man instincts kicked in and the solution I thought of was "bacon bandage!" If you want, you can also use some aluminum foil to create a dam... but that's no fun.

Here is the chicken bandaged up with bacon strips and tied up neatly.

Assuming you're more careful than I, you can avoid the delicious bacon bandages and skip ahead to tying up the chicken as Jacques Pepin demonstrates wonderfully in the linked video.

There were no cooking instructions presented by Jacques so I roasted my Galantine in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 F and then turned on the broiler until the skin became browned.

Finished product!

I really hope that you all give the Chicken Galantine a try! The stuffing is really what makes the dish special and, if I may toot my own horn, the combination of mushroom, olives and herbs was really awesome!

Enjoy!