When the Wild Rivers Mushroom Club sent out an e-mail with Tony and Pam's recipe for Chicken with Wild Mushroom Ragout (based on a presentation by Gordon Ramsey), we simply had to try it, and was it awesome! We knew that it had to become our March Recipe of the Month.
Tony and Pam are delighted to share it with us all. Here are some of Tony's comments:
The recipe actually came from a Gordon Ramsey TV program but no measurements were given & Pam played around with the ingredients and added some others until it tasted 'great'. You can still 'tweak' it more yourselves.
The chicken recipe for the sauce was our first attempt, since then we have used the sauce on pork & halibut. We are pretty sure that the sauce can be used on a wide variety of foods.
You can also use (we have) a mix of dried hedgehogs and black trumpets if your supply of morels is low. It's still a great sauce but, not quite as special as it is with morels.
We used morels from Mt. Hood in our preparation.
Chicken with Wild Mushroom Ragout
Poach Chicken
Chicken stock, enough to cover chicken
1 carrot, cut into 1" pieces
1 stalk celery, cut into 1" pieces
1-2 leeks, cut into 1" pieces
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
3-4 garlic cloves, cut in half
2 chicken breasts with skin
- Place all ingredients except chicken in large pot and bring the mixture to a boil. Add chicken and poach for 10 minutes. Remove chicken and set aside. Reserve about 1 cup of poaching liquid for Mushroom Sauce.
4 tablespoons salted butter, separated
2 shallots, sliced lengthwise
3 sprigs thyme
2 cloves garlic, diced
Salt, to taste
1 cup or less dried morel mushrooms (or hedgehogs and black trumpets mixed), rehydrated
1 cup white wine
Reserved poaching liquid
1 cup heavy cream
Extra virgin olive oil
- Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in saute pan. Add next 5 ingredients and saute 5 minutes. Add wine and reduce. Add 3/4 - 1 cup of the reserved poaching liquid. Cook about 5-10 minutes. Add cream and gently boil until the mixture turns the color of coffee with cream.
- Heat olive oil in separate saute pan. Add chicken, skin side down, and cook until skin is lightly browned. Turn, add remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and baste until chicken is cooked, about 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the breast. Remove from pan.
- Slice chicken breast and top with Mushroom Sauce.