[Upbeat Music Playing]
Hi, I'm Chef Scott Samuel here at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone here in Napa Valley.
Today I'm gonna make a classic dish: chicken with grapes.
Going to do a roasted Petit Poulet with a red grape sauce, and pair that with black lentils.
So, the Petit Poulet is a baby chicken and what I'm going to do is marinate it with a fennel seed
and cayenne and olive oil to give a little bit of heat.
And then I'm gonna take my grapes and make a sauce out of it.
Basically grapes, wine, little bit of apple cider vinegar, chicken stock,
cook that down, purée it, add a little bit of butter, strain it....
And a nice bright red sauce, and then pair that with classically cooked black lentils.
So, let's start with the lentils.
All the ingredients that I have here for the lentils are our mirepoix:
the black lentils, our aromatics, the thyme, and the bay leaf.
And you can either use whole mirepoix — the carrots, onions, and leeks, and cook that and remove it at the end,
or you can do a nice little brunoise of vegetables, which I'm going to do today.
So, alright. It's very simple. We're gonna add it all to the pot:
mirepoix,
lentils,
the thyme and bay leaf — our aromatics,
small pinch of salt,
chicken stock....
We're gonna bring this to a simmer,
put a lid on it, and cook for about 25 minutes until our lentils are soft.
The reason I'm using black lentils — because they hold their shape and they have a nice texture,
as opposed to green lentils or brown lentils that tend to break apart.
So, this is a nice side for the dish.
Bring it to a simmer, cook for 25 minutes.
Add a little bit of pepper.
All right....
While that's coming to a simmer, let's take a look at our grape sauce.
So, the ingredients for our grape sauce will be shallots, grapes,
white wine, port wine,
chicken stock,
and apple cider vinegar.
So, it's very simple. We're gonna combine all of these into a pot,
simmer them until the grapes kind of break down, and they're gonna add actual texture to the sauce —
the chicken stock and port and wine are gonna give the body in the balance of acid.
So, once again, very simple. Adding everything to a pot.
We want to cook this long enough so that the grapes burst and the shallots — the sting of the shallots — are cooked out,
our port wine,
our white wine,
our apple cider vinegar....
A little balance of acid. And our chicken stock.
Okay, we'll bring this to a boil,
and then turn on low heat for about 10 minutes to cook it down until our grapes get soft,
and then we'll purée it in a blender, strain it,
add a touch of butter, and that should be our finished sauce. Season it with a little bit of salt and cayenne.
So, let's take a look at our Petit Poulet, which is a baby chicken.
And you can use a regular chicken or a roaster or a smaller roaster if you like.
You can also use squab or pheasant,
but I like the Petit Poulet because of the portion size and the meat is a little bit sweeter than a regular chicken.
So, I'm marinating it with whole fennel seeds, some cayenne,
a little bit of ground fennel seed....
olive oil to coat....
And for about 30 minutes.... So, we get the some of the flavor from the fennel and the
cayenne infused into the bird.
So, I'll set this aside until we are ready to cook it, and then we're gonna sear it and roast it.
So, I have an oven that's been preheated to 400 degrees,
and I'm gonna sear it in a pan and finish it in the oven.
But let's take a look at our lentils and our grape sauce.
So, the grapes have a little bit more time to go. I want them to get soft,
so that when I do purée it, that's the body of my sauce.
So, probably another few minutes here.....
Then taking a look at our lentils....
Yeah, these are been going for about 10 minutes.
So, about another 15 to 20 minutes until they're soft. And all the liquids absorbed.
At that point, I'll take it off the heat....
Let it rest for a few minutes, and then season to taste.
Okay, let's take a look at our sauce. We've reduced it a little bit.
We see that our grapes are soft....
We're ready to purée this and strain our sauce.
[blender sounds]
So, what I want to do is strain out the skins.....
And get a nice smooth sauce.
And then what I'm going to do is add my butter,
reduce this down to texture, and then we'll season a taste and that'll be our finish sauce.
So, keeping that on low heat, my lentils should be done right now.
Little season to taste, set that aside, keep it warm.....
And let's cook the Petit Poulet.
So, I have a pan on medium-high heat right here.
My oven is preheated. I'm going to add a touch of olive oil.
As soon as it shimmers, as it is right now, I know that my pan is ready to go.
So, this is going to be a sear for color in the pan. And then a roast in the oven to finish cooking.
I'm gonna start with the leg thigh....
....skin-side down to develop nice color and caramelization.
[sizzling sounds]
Alright, I'll season with a touch of salt.
And I'm gonna probably cook it for about a minute and a half — to two and a half minutes — on this first side,
to develop color on the skin,
and then I'll flip it over to the meat side and roast this in the oven.
Okay, so it's been in the pan for about almost two minutes now. I can see the sides getting a little opaque, and uh.....
There! Nice color! Go ahead and and flip it....
.....So, hot pan, hot oven, I'm going to place it in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes and
then remove it, and let it rest, and finish our dish.
All right, our bird has had a chance to roast here. Let's take a look at it.
All right, this is a nice.... We're gonna let it rest for a couple minutes before we plate it,
but let's once again look at the components.
We have our grape sauce that I've cooked down to texture....
Ready to go....
We have our Black Beluga lentils....
So, all components ready to go. And our black grapes for garnish.
And a nice bright red sauce,
the black lentils,
leg and thigh,
and then we'll garnish with a few of our black grapes....
And here we have our fennel, cayenne, roasted Petit Poulet,
with black lentils, red grape sauce and black grapes.