“To succeed a good roast chicken, there is only one thing: chicken gravy, which many people don’t know how to make at home“. And, let us make it clear from the outset: “Real chicken juice is not a base. In cooking, we call this juice fat because there is just a little added and that is what makes it very good.“Chef Éric Briffard, two-starred, Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) is also Director of Culinary Arts at the Le Cordon Bleu Paris institute where he offers workshops and demonstrations. Facing his apprentices, for a day or everyday , he remains firm: “Outside poultry from Bresse or other very white ones with natural fat, cooking juices are not enough to produce a juice in its own right to accompany the chicken or Sunday roast“. So here’s how to prepare it easily and simply.
The 6 steps of making a juice
To make a juice, chef Briffard indicates: “The only way is to collect pieces of meat (fins, carcass, neck, offal, etc.), ideally from your poultry merchant/butcher or to buy them separately.. If you already have your poultry, you can also cut the parts mentioned yourself. To make his juice, he uses a very simple but decisive technique. According to him, the whole issue “is to capture the caramelization of the natural juices of the chicken“.
Time saving tip : ask your merchant to empty and set aside the offal (liver, gizzards, heart). Then, burn the fins under a flame (an essential step too often neglected in the chef’s experience) and cut half of them into small pieces. If you’re doing it at home, remove the tip with scissors by half a centimeter.”because it can be bitter“, warns the chef.
Ingredients
- 100 to 200 g of poultry wings (only the bottom half; leave the other half on the bird) and other pieces (neck, liver, gizzards, heart)
- Salt pepper
- 1 sprig of thyme and rosemary (preferably fresh)
- 100 g small sweet onions (“ideally from the Cévennes for their melting caramelization, but no yellow onion“, specifies the chef)
- 2 cloves garlic
- Espelette pepper (option)
Chef Briffard’s recipe
- Cut the pieces of meat (fins, neck, offal) very small and crush them. Gently brown them in oil until caramelized.
- Season the chicken, on the outside but also on the inside, with salt, pepper and a sprig of rosemary and thyme. Put it in a casserole dish or roasting dish surrounded by the caramelized pieces of meat. If you need cooking tips, refer to this article. And don’t forget to water regularly.
- Slice the onions into 2 then 3 and finally into small pieces. Caramelize them in a separate pan with the garlic cloves and Espelette pepper. Add them to the oven halfway through cooking.
- Once the chicken is cooked, before resting it under a piece of aluminum foil, collect the excess natural fat from the oven dish (the cooking juices) and remove some of the pieces of meat. With a knob of butter, salt and pepper, heat the juice again in the pan to finish caramelizing the filling.
- Deglaze with water once or several times until reduced almost to dryness: this means putting a little water (half a glass per deglazing maximum) and evaporating the water little by little until the concentration is obtained. of juice.
- Finally, add a little chicken fat, a little water spit out by the rested chicken and serve!
The chef’s final comment
“This juice is the quintessence of all the taste of chicken and, ultimately, it’s not much to do“, concludes the chef. A technique he uses at home, with his familyon the weekend and which can also be adapted to duck, veal or even lamb.