Daniel Pfyl, hospitality management lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, shares some professional techniques to make your cooking easier. This week, he shares some winter recipes from his native Switzerland.
In Switzerland this old-fashioned dish would normally be made with veal, but Chef Pfyl says it is good with chicken or with pork fillet. He likes to take it to pot-luck dinners as it can be prepared ahead of time and kept warm in a slow cooker.
Zurich-style ragout of chicken in mushroom and cream sauce (Zurich Geschnetzeltes) with potato rosti
Serves 4
500g chicken, thinly sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
flour for dusting
30ml oil
40g butter
80g shallots, finely chopped (or onions can be used)
150g fresh button mushrooms, thinly sliced
100ml white wine
150-200ml fresh creambeurre manie (see below)
100ml salt-reduced beef stock
zest and juice of ¼ lemon, or to taste
parsley
Method
1) You could buy chicken stir-fry, but Chef Pfyl prefers to slice chicken breast thinly. Make sure you use a separate chopping board for raw chicken and wash it, the knife and your hands in hot soapy water afterwards to avoid any campylobacter contamination. Always assume the worst when it comes to food safety, he says.
2) Finely chop the shallots. They have a milder flavour than onions. This dish is cooked quickly so they need to be chopped finely.
3) Wipe the mushrooms with a damp cloth or brush or rinse quickly in water and shake the water off. Slice finely. You need about the same volume of mushrooms as meat.
4) Beurre manie is a traditional mix of butter and flour used to thicken sauces and soups. (It's useful for turning the liquid in which fish was poached into a sauce - then add chopped herbs such as chives.)You could substitute cornflour and white wine as a thickener for sauce.
To prepare the beurre manie, knead equal quantities of room-temperature butter and flour together with your hands until it forms a paste. Twenty grams of each will probably be more than enough, but it keeps in the fridge. Allow it to soften before use.
5) Heat a pan and add a little oil. Oil is better than butter for cooking chicken as it will heat to a higher temperature without burning.
Put a third or half the chicken pieces on a plate, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, dust with flour and toss to coat. The flour helps thicken the sauce and also helps the sauce coat the chicken.
When the oil is hot and a faint haze comes off it, spread the chicken pieces in the pan and leave for a minute or two to caramelise on the bottom. They will then no longer stick and you can move them around the pan easily with a fork or fish slice. Keep the heat up so the chicken doesn't stew.
6) Brown the chicken on all sides and allow to cook through. When cooked, drain in a colander or on paper towels. Add a little stock to the pan and scrape up the crusty bits. Pour through a sieve into a bowl. Rinse the hot pan in water and allow it to evaporate, then add more oil and repeat with the rest of the batches of chicken.
7) Melt butter in the cleaned pan and add finely chopped shallots. Cook on medium heat so they soften but don't colour.
8)Add the sliced mushrooms and stir over low heat. They will soak up the butter. As they cook, stir in the rest of the white wine, the deglazing liquid from the chicken, and the beef stock. Beef stock gives the dish a creamy beige colour. If you use chicken stock it will be very pale. Simmer until the mushrooms soften and the sauce has reduced slightly.
Meanwhile, chop the parsley finely and grate or slice and finely chop the lemon zest, taking care not to include any of the bitter white pith.
9) Take pea-sized pieces of the beurre manie and stir into the sauce. When it has melted, add another. The sauce will thicken. You will probably need about a tablespoon of the beurre manie in total to bring the sauce to a nice creamy consistency.
10) Add the cream and chicken and stir. Allow to heat through. If you boil it hard the cream will split, but it's fine if you allow it just to simmer to heat through. Check the consistency of the sauce and add more stock or cream if needed.
Taste for seasoning and add lemon zest and juice to taste.
Rosti
Ingredients
800g (about 4 medium to large) floury potatoes, peeled
salt, freshly ground black pepper and nutmeg
1 Tbsp butter
25ml flavourless oil (such as rice bran)
Method
1) Grate the potatoes on the largest slots of the grater. Season the grated potato with salt and pepper - the salt will draw some of the water out of the potato.
2) Squeeze the water out of the potato. You can use your hands, but Chef Pfyl prefers to wrap the potato in a clean tea towel or muslin cloth, and twist to force the water out - take care not to split the tea towel, he warns. Four potatoes release about a cup of liquid. Do this just before cooking or the potato will turn grey.
3) Heat about half the oil in a pan. When it is hot, spread the pile of dry potato gratings in it. It's not necessary to shape it at this stage. Toss and stir. As the potato dries, add a little more oil. You want it to take on some colour.
4) When the potato is half-cooked, shape it into a round, flat cake. A plastic spatula is good for this, but be careful not to melt it. Cook on the lowest heat, adding about half the butter in little pieces around the edge. Cover with a lid or matching pan and leave for about five to 10 minutes. Then remove the lid and tip the pan a little so you can see how the underside is browning.
5) When nicely browned, place the second pan on top and turn both over so the rosti is now the other way up.
6) Neaten the edges and put the rest of the butter in little pieces around the edge of the rosti. Cook over low heat until the underside is browned, then serve hot with the chicken. Cooked rösti can be reheated in the oven.
