Salt Crusted Chicken with Blue Cheese & Buttermilk Mash
Adapted from Chef Haru
Ingredients
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1½ bunches thyme, chopped coarsely
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1½ bunches rosemary, chopped coarsely
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3 cloves garlic, chopped coarsely
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900g/31.7 ozs salt
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900g/31.7 ozs plain flour
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egg whites of 7 x 60g eggs (250g/9ozs)
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300ml/10.14 ozs. water
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1.5kg chicken (preferably free range, trussed) taken out of fridge 1 hour before starting to cook
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2 egg yolks, combined with a little water
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2 cloves
Buttermilk & Blue Cheese Mashed Potato
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1kg/2 pounds potatoes
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1 cup buttermilk
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25grams blue cheese (or however much you like ;) )
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75g / butter
Method
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 170C/340F. Blend thyme, rosemary, garlic and salt in processor. Combine with egg white and flour in large bowl. Unless you have a really large electric mixer, mix it by hand. It almost killed my mixer as there was so much mix. Mix to combine. Gradually add water until a smooth dough forms.
Step 2 - Divide the dough in two portions: one thirds and two thirds of the dough. Place smaller piece of dough on a sheet of lightly floured baking paper. Roll the dough out to 5mm in thickness.
3. Place this dough on a lined baking tray. Place trussed chicken, breast side up, in the centre.
Step 4 - Roll out the rest of the dough and cut out two "wings" and a tail. Cover chicken with remaining piece of rolled dough. Do this carefully and ensure that there are no gaps or holes as they will dry the chicken out. Crimp edges to seal, brush with egg wash.
Step 5 - Fashion a chicken's head and add two cloves for eyes. Using the egg yolk as a glue, attach the head, tail and wings to the chicken and brush these with the egg wash.
Step 6 - Bake at 170°C/340F fan forced for 1.5 hours. Once cooked, cut around base of salt crust. (DO NOT EAT CRUST). Remove the top crust. Lift chicken onto chopping board, and cut into serving size portions. Serve with mashed potato and herbs to simulate a chicken's roost. Just because you want to.
For mashed potato
Step 1 - Boil potatoes in salted water until soft. Pass through a potato ricer into a bowl. In a large saucepan, heat butter, crumbled blue cheese and buttermilk and once heated and butter has melted, stir through the potato. Add salt and pepper to taste.