Mushroom Duxelle Stuffed Chicken Breast

This mushroom duxelle stuffed chicken breast recipe is a delight to make and very tasty. It will visually impress your dinner guests. But then, when they taste the juicy mushroom chicken breast, topped with the quenelle of smooth chicken liver pate, and poured over with a brandy-based wild mushroom and cream sauce they will be blown away.How yummy does this look?You can see that I have served this mushroom duxelle stuffed chicken breast with some griddled asparagus and parsnip straw. I discuss these below but you can use any vegetables you like. The vegetables are important but the star is the chicken.I run through in detail how to make this dish below but in terms of order of cooking, and after you have got all of the ingredients together and completed all of the preparation, you should seal the chicken and leave it to finish in the oven. While cooking, you can then complete the vegetables and sauce. Finally, and once the chicken is cooked, it’s service time and preparing the chicken liver pate quenelle.Ok, let’s start!

1. Get the ingredients together

As always, I advise you get all of the ingredients together before starting any cooking. This is even more important with a dish like this as there are a number of constituent parts. In fact, this dish is really a number of different recipes, compared to just one.

2. Prepare the mushroom duxelle and the chicken

A duxelle is just a fancy French word for frying some finely chopped mushrooms and shallots in butter… Well, almost. The name is traditionally said to come from the 17th-century French chef La Varenne, who is credited with naming the mixture after his employer, the Marquis d’Uxelles (Wikipedia notes the story is not certain).

To make the duxelle, first finely chop the shallots. Then, take your mushroom and do the same. If you have a food processor it’s easier to chop the mushrooms using this. Just use the pulse function otherwise you may end up with mushroom puree!

Once the shallots and mushrooms are chopped, melt some butter over medium heat and add the shallots. Lightly fry until the shallots soften. Try not to colour the shallots. Next, add the mushrooms and some seasoning and continue to fry until all of the water from the mushrooms has evaporated.

Now, add the sherry and let it fully reduce in the pan.

Now leave this to cool while you prepare the chicken.

For the chicken, first lay the chicken out and, if it still has the skin on, remove the skin by just pulling it off.

Now, using a tenderizing mallet, or even a rolling pin, lightly bash the chicken breasts so they flatten out a little. Then cover the surface with the cooled duxelle.

Now, simply roll the breast up as tightly as you can and tie up using cooking string. It doesn’t matter if some of the duxelle falls out. As long as you have a reasonable quantity rolled in with the chicken breast you will have a great flavour.

The final stuffed and rolled chicken breast should look something like this:

3. Cook the chicken breast

If you have one, use a skillet to cook the chicken breasts. If you don’t, a frying pan will do. You’ll just need to transfer the breasts to an oven tray to finish off.

Melt some butter over medium heat in your skillet and then season the chicken breasts and add to the pan.

Keep basting the chicken with the butter until the chicken breast is sealed all over. You are using butter so don’t worry if the chicken turns a little brown. It is only the cooked butter.

Once basted all over the chicken breasts should look like this:

Now, if using a skillet place the whole pan in a pre-heated oven at 180C / 160C Fan and leave to cook for 20 minutes. If using a frying pan just transfer to an oven tray and do the same.

The USDA recommends cooking chicken to an internal temperature of 165F (74C), so check the thickest part of a roll with a probe thermometer before you take it out. Now it’s time to prepare the vegetables and the sauce.

4. The parsnip straw

For the parsnip straw, simply peel the parsnip and shred into thin strips. I used a knife for this but the shredding blade on your blender will also do the same.

Season the parsnip and then place on a baking tray and put in the oven with the chicken. Keep an eye on the parsnip as it can burn quite quickly. Cooking should take 7-10 minutes depending on how thin the parsnip strips are.

5. Cooking the asparagus

For the asparagus, I like to blanch for 30 seconds in boiling water and then griddle. You can do the blanching beforehand if you like and just leave the asparagus in cold water until you are ready to pan-fry.

Once blanched and cooled season the asparagus and simply griddle in a griddling pan (a frying pan will also do) in some melted butter for no more than around 1 minute. You can do this at the end while you are making the sauce.

6. The brandy, wild mushroom and cream sauce

With the chicken and parsnips almost done it’s time to make the sauce.

For this take the frying pan you used for the duxelle and deglaze with a little butter over medium heat. Then add your wild mushrooms, season and fry off lightly for about 1 minute. Now for the brandy.

Carefully add the brandy and remember it will flame, or flambe. This will flash so keep the pan at arm’s length.

Once the flames have gone then the alcohol has been burned off. Now let the brandy reduce by half and then leave off the heat while you prepare the service. The only thing left for the sauce is to bring to the heat again and add the cream.

7. Prepare the plate

To prepare the plate simply take the chicken from the oven and, on a chopping board, cut the breast in half and slice one half into 3 or 4 slices. Display this on the centre of the plate and place the asparagus and parsnip straw around the chicken.

For the quenelle of chicken liver pate simply make a quenelle and place on top of the chicken. Make a small dip in the top of the quenelle to hold some of the sauce.

If you are unsure on how to make a quenelle just look at this video using ice cream that shows how simple it is.

Once the pate quenelle is ready you can finish the sauce by bringing it back to the heat and adding the cream. Then, simply drizzle this over the pate and chicken and you have one wonderful main course. Yum!

Ok, foodie friends! That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this recipe and give it a go yourselves. Let me know if you do by using the comments section below. I’d love to know how you get on.Or, if you want to be notified of new recipes, just sign up to the newsletter at the top of the page and I’ll keep you updated.As always, many thanks for reading and until next time… Steve.

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