GUY MARTIN’S STEAMED CHICKEN WITH CILANTRO OIL/POULET A LA VAPEUR A L’HUILE DE CORIANDRE DE GUY MARTIN
Prep Time
30 mins
Cook Time
35 mins
Total Time
9 hrs 5 mins
NOTE: that during steaming, fat drains away from the chicken yet the meat remains moist, and permeated with the flavors rubbed under the skin. Note, too, that you need to drain the yogurt about 8 hours in the refrigerator, so do this the night before you plan to cook the dish.
Servings: 4 diners
Ingredients
- 1 cup plain whole fat yogurt, 250ml
- teaspoon ½grated ginger chunk of ginger peeled, from a ½ x ½-inch (1.5 x 1.5cm
- 1 teaspoon lime zest minced
- inch, 9cm One 3-1/2 long piece of fresh ginger peeled
- The zest from 1 lime minced
- 1 3-1/3 to 4 lb., 1.750-2kg chicken cutserving pieces,
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 tablespoons Cilantro Oil see recipe
- Geranium blossoms - optional garnish
Instructions
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The day before you plan to serve the chicken, drain the yogurt. Place the yogurt in a strainer lined with cheese cloth placed in a bowl, and refrigerate for 6 hours. Remove the yogurt from the strainer. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the ginger and the lime zest into the yogurt, cover, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, or overnight. Remove the yogurt from the refrigerator and strain it through a fine-mesh strainer, to remove the ginger and the lime. Reserve at room temperature.
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Cut the ginger into chunks and purée it in a food processor fit with a steel blade. The purée won’t be smooth, but this doesn’t matter. Place the purée in a good-sized piece of cheesecloth, or other fabric that is loosely woven, and twist it to extract as much juice as possible - you should get 2 teaspoons of ginger juice. Discard the ginger pulp.
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In a small bowl, mix the lime zest with the ginger juice.
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Gently peel back the skin on the pieces of chicken without detaching it and either rub the ginger juice and lime zest mixture on the meat, or dip the meat into the mixture, which ever works best for you, making sure that you divide the mixture evenly among the pieces of chicken. Bring the skin back up and over the meat, as it was before, and pat it into place. Tie the wing and breast pieces together with kitchen twine so that the wing is held close to the meat, which will prevent it from drying out in cooking. Let the chicken marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.
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Bring 4 cups (1 liter) water to a boil in the bottom half of a steamer. Place the chicken in the top half, cover, and steam until the chicken is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the chicken from the steamer and either pat it dry, or let it dry at room temperature.
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Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat until it is hot but not smoking. Brown the chicken on one side, season it with salt and pepper, turn and brown it on the other side, seasoning it with salt and pepper. Transfer the chicken to a plate lined with paper towels and pat any excess fat from the chicken.
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To serve, evenly divide the yogurt among six dinner plates, preferably white, placing it in the center of the plate and flattening it into a round in the center of the plate. Place either one or two pieces of chicken atop the yogurt, in the center of a plate. Surround each piece with 1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons of cilantro oil, garnish with the flower if desired, and serve.
