TGRWT#16: Chicken and Rose

Ive been following They Go Really Well Together (TGRWT) for some time now. It began on Khymos as a group project in molecular gastronomy to test whether foods that shared key chemicals that contributed to their aroma or flavor would compliment each other. Each month, a different flavor combination is chosen by the (rotating) host, and people from around the web contribute their creations. This month's pairing is chicken and rose, and my contribution follows...

Rose.

It isn't something I've worked with much in the kitchen. My primary food-association with it centers around Indian desserts. Chicken in an Indian dessert didn't seem like such a hot idea (though I briefly did consider something with filo dough).

Still, this is where I started. What about a rose-almond cream sauce? That might be nice over chicken. It would be something like a chicken korma variant would be good.

That's why I decided not to try it. I felt too confident that it would work. If the rose and chicken didn't complement each other, the almond flavor would probably take over. I wanted to highlight the chicken and the rose... and the idea of a soft chicken pastry wouldn't leave my head.

What I settled on doesn't really have a name. It is inspired in form by the enchilada, but shares little with it in taste. When I told Angela my plan, she was skeptical.^*

I began by roasting some chicken. I wanted the skin to be flavorful and the meat to be as tender as possible. That combination seemed to call for chicken thighs. I picked up a package of eight or so, and baked them at about 425ºF (220ºC) for about 40 minutes along with some shallots, parsley, kosher salt, and a stick of butter.

Yeah. A stick of butter. I was inspired by a post on Ideas in Food that talked about roast chicken butter. I thought I'd make some... plus, the butter would do some nice things to the chicken.

When the chicken was done, I removed the skin and bones. The bones went into the pressure cooker to make some stock. The skin was saved separately from the meat.

A day passed. Things were refrigerated, except for the one chicken thigh that I had devoured almost as soon as it had come out of the oven. (I had to make sure it was good. It was.)

The next day, the chicken skins got tossed into a frying pan to heat them up. Then I put them into the blender along with four grape tomatoes and enough rose water to allow the mix to blend. I added rose water until the mix was just a bit thinner than ketchup.

I tasted it. Yes. The chicken and rose worked. I added some kosher salt. I tasted it again. This was my sauce.

I sauteed some shallot in some of the fat left from reheating the chicken skins (mostly chicken-butter). The chicken got cut into small cubes, covered in flour, and added to that. Some of the chicken stock was added to the mix after a bit, creating a sort of proto-velouté. This mixture went into flour tortillas along with a wee bit of the rose sauce.

About half a cup of a 50/50 mix of the rose sauce and chicken stock was added to the baking dish, and the burrito-enchilada-things were topped with some more of the rose sauce (along with some fresh parsley). I baked that at 350ºF (175ºC) for about half an hour.

Image by AngelaI served it along with some rice flavored with rose water and chicken stock and roasted tomato. My plating is less than elegant. I know.

How did the results taste, though? Really good. The chicken and shallot mixture was nicely creamy. The rose was definitely noticeable, but it blended well with the chicken - far better than I thought it would. Angela was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. By "it" in this case, I don't mean the pairing of chicken and rose, per se, but rather my plan to create a sauce based on chicken skin (which was really good). The housemate also tried some. She may chime in with her own opinion, but she seemed to like it.

^* This is an understatement. She thought I was crazy.