Verjus Recipes

CHICKEN BREASTS WITH MUSTARD-VERJUICE JUS

Steps:

• Heat oven to 450 degrees. Sprinkle chicken generously on all sides with salt and pepper.
• Heat oil in heavy 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add chicken and brown well on both sides, about 6 to 8 minutes total. Turn the chicken skin side up, put the skillet into the oven and roast until the chicken is just cooked through, about 15 to 17 minutes. Being very careful of the hot pan, remove it from the oven, transfer chicken to a platter, and tent with foil to keep warm.
• Return pan to stove top, add verjuice and bring to a boil over high heat, scraping up all those brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add stock and continue to boil gently until reduced by about 1/3, about 5 to 7 minutes. Whisk in mustard and thyme, adjust seasoning and spoon the sauce over the chicken. Serve with any remaining sauce separately.

POULET AU VERJUS - CHICKEN WITH VERJUS

Steps:

• First, make verjus:.
• Pull the grapes away from their stems, then press them, extracting as much of the juice as possible. Filter this juice through muslin, a jelly bag, or use coffee filter paper. Bottle this and sterilize it, or freeze some in ice cube trays. Or use it up within the next few days.
• Brown the chicken cut in pieces for a good ten minutes.
• Add the chopped garlic and cook briefly.
• Pour in a large glass of verjus, and some chicken stock made with 1/2 cube 1/2 cup of hot water.
• Add the chopped parsley.
• Cook over low heat for 20 minutes, partially covered until towards the end, when you take the cover off.
• Use more verjus, if you want. It is a pleasant, fruity taste with a tart, vinegary quality.
• Serve with mashed potatoes or Sarlat Potatoes, recipe#209855, fresh green beans, or other summer fare.

VERJUS

Steps:

• Use at least 3 bunches of under ripe grapes. You could make bushel fulls, too!
• Press the juice out of the grapes, using your fingers, or by crushing the bunches with bricks, or by using a wine press.
• A wine press is a small barrell with a weighted lid on a substantial screw that winds down, down, down on the grapes. The liquid pours out of a spigot low on the barrel.
• Strain and filter the juice, discarding the skins and seeds. Strain with muslin, a jelly bag, coffee filters, anything that will work to produce a clear liquid.
• If you make a small quantity, use within 4 or 5 days. A larger quantity should be bottled and sterilized, or put in jars and sterilized.
• The formatting of this recipe required me to give a minimum 2 ingredients, so I entered bunches of grapes twice!