Chicken Cream

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Small food processor, about 3 cups
• •Sturdy fine-mesh sieve
• •Firm flexible scraper
• •Small narrow bowl and whisk
• •Chilled shallow serving dish

Instructions

1. 1

   Set the temperatures

   Chill the serving dish and keep the chicken and cream cold. Let the butter stand only until a thumb leaves an easy indentation while its surface remains matte, then cut it into four pieces. Cold chicken and pliable butter will bind smoothly; hard butter leaves grains, while oily butter escapes from the purée.

   Fresh cream in the source means sweet liquid cream with enough fat to whip, not cultured crème fraîche. Crème fraîche would bring a tang the entry does not contain.
2. 2

   Pound the chicken

   Put the chicken in a small food processor and pulse until it resembles a very fine meal, stopping twice to scrape the bowl. Add the 2 tablespoons of liquid cream in two additions, processing only until each disappears, then add the softened butter one piece at a time. Pulse to a pale, cohesive paste. If a greasy shine appears around the blade, the mixture has become too warm. Stop, chill the processor bowl for 10 minutes, then pulse briefly to bring it together again. Ça se rattrape; adding more cream will only make it loose.

3. 3

   Pass through sieve

   Set a fine-mesh sieve over a chilled bowl. Work the chicken paste through in small portions with a firm flexible scraper, using short strokes rather than smearing the whole batch at once. Scrape the smooth purée from the underside of the sieve as you go and leave the final stringy fibers behind. What falls into the bowl should be pale, close, and entirely free of threads. The processor was the modern scaffolding; this sieving is the dish.

4. 4

   Fold in cream

   Whisk a small amount of cold heavy cream in a narrow bowl until it falls from the whisk in soft folds and barely holds a rounded crest, then measure exactly 3 tablespoons after whipping. Fold one third into the sieved base to loosen it, followed by the remaining cream in two additions, turning the spatula broadly through the mixture. Stop as soon as no white streaks remain. The Crème de Volaille should hold soft spoon marks without feeling stiff; beating after the cream goes in knocks out the lightness the source worked to create.

5. 5

   Salt and serve

   Only now fold in the fine salt, beginning cautiously if the chicken was seasoned when cooked. Taste from a chilled spoon, adjust once, and transfer the Crème de Volaille immediately to its cold serving dish, leaving the natural sweep of the spoon across the top. Serve at once with thin toasts of pain de mie or baguette. Keep any second portion refrigerated until needed and never leave the chicken cream at room temperature for more than 2 hours. À table!

Chef Tips

• •Use breast meat or the pale inner meat from a roast, completely cold and stripped of skin, fat, cartilage, and browned edges. Dark meat tastes good, but it makes a heavier, grayer spread and changes the preparation the source specifies.
• •A gently poached chicken breast gives the palest result, but carefully cooked leftover roast chicken works if you trim it well. Technique first, always; expensive poultry cannot rescue a warm, greasy purée.
• •Do not skip the sieve. A processor makes the home version practical, but its blades leave tiny fibers that the tamis was meant to catch. Pressing and scraping take several minutes, and those minutes are the difference between chopped chicken and cream.
• •Serve on thin baguette toasts or pain de mie toasted until crisp but barely colored. A dry Champagne, Crémant, or mineral white Burgundy suits the cool richness without crowding it.
• •The finished cream loses some lift as it waits. Cover leftovers closely, refrigerate them, and use them within a day; fold once gently before serving, but do not beat them.

Advance Preparation

• •Up to one day ahead, cook and chill the chicken, remove every trace of skin and darkened surface, and weigh all the components. Keep the chicken and cream refrigerated.
• •Set the butter out about 20 minutes before mixing so it becomes pliable without turning oily. Chill the sieve, receiving bowl, and serving dish while it softens.
• •Do not assemble or salt the Crème de Volaille ahead. For a dinner party, have every component measured and the toasts ready, then purée, sieve, fold, and season during the final 25 minutes before serving.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 55g)