Chicken croquettes you start the day before.
And you poach a chicken.
It's very simple.
One three, three and a half pound chicken in a pot.
Cover it up to the top
of the chicken with water,
add an onion,
one piece of celery with the leafy tops,
one carrot.
Oh, 10 or 12 peppercorn and some salt.
I throw a Bay leaf in it as well.
It's right here,
Bay leaf.
So we cook it about an hour.
We rotate it occasionally at a low boil.
You bring it up to a boil
and then turn it low,
salt the water after it boils.
And we cook the chicken one hour.
Then,
here's the real important part,
we cool the chicken completely in its juices.
And then we strain it.
That's our stock.
Okay, now the next day,
we remove all the skin
and bones and we mince all of the chicken.
That's what this is.
And I have it in a chilled bowl.
Then I separated four eggs.
The whites we're going to use to coat the croquettes
once they're cool
in my bread crumb topping.
My bread crumb topping is half fine,
half panko,
a little sprinkle of dried versions
of the herbs that are in the filling.
This is dry parsley,
a little dry thyme.
And I always put a little sprinkle
of Parm cheese in my breadcrumbs.
Give them a nutty flavor when they cook up.
So to the pan in five tablespoons
of butter that I melted,
I cooked a minced onion and one rib of celery.
I added a little salt and white pepper
and I just sprinkled in about six tablespoons of flour.
Now we're going to whisk in
a couple of cups,
about two,
of our homemade chicken broth from poaching our chicken.
So I'm gonna take the yolks and add
a little bit like we're making Carbonara
of the hot stock to this,
to bring its temperature
up closer to what's already in the pan.
Then we're going to take that now warm tempered egg
and add that to the pan.
We're gonna add about a half a cup of heavy cream,
half a cup of fine breadcrumb.
Now we're gonna let this get nice
and thick and then we're going to let it cool.
And then we're going to marry
the cooled thickened sauce
with the minced chicken.
To the minced chicken,
I'm going to add a couple tablespoons
of finely chopped fresh parsley,
chopped fresh thyme,
about a tablespoon,
a little lemon zest and combine.
So, I'm going to take a mound.
You can make a pyramid,
a dollop,
a circle,
a patty,
whatever you like.
And gently pass it through the egg.
Coat them evenly in the breadcrumb
and then place whether it's a patty
or a cone or a pyramid,
set the shape down
and continue times 16.
Chill them before you fry them
and only fry them a few at a time.
So these take three,
four minutes.
So now we're gonna lift the basket out
and I'm just dropping them
onto a little bit of brown paper here.
Okay so now we're just gonna make a little simple,
simple stove top gravy.
So a little flour into melted butter
very thin roux,
a sprinkle of black pepper.
Maria loves black pepper in her gravy.
And some chicken stock or bone broth.
And then we just let that thicken up a touch.
We're going to finish our stove top chicken gravy.
I just added a touch of cream.
And now we're going to add our little secret ingredients,
a squirt of Dijon,
and a little squirt of lemon juice
at the very,
very end.
And a little bit of parsley.
Put a little puddle of gravy down
to kind of anchor them.
And then we'll set the croquettes
into that puddle of gravy.
And we'll put just a drizzle more of the lemon,
Dijon cream gravy over the top.
(bright music)