This traditional French recipe comes from the kitchen of our chefs David and Bernard in Toulouse, who know a thing or two about great French cuisine. When they aren’t compiling their own versions of classic recipes, they run wonderful French cooking and wine holidays in South West France.

Translated, ‘ballotine’ means a piece of meat that is stuffed with other meat and seasoned vegetables and then rolled, often tied to hold its shape. Not as elegant when you translate it actually but the taste makes up for all that.

This roasted chicken dish is a great way to impress guests or put a new twist on a Sunday roast.

Ingredients

1 oven ready chicken @ 1.5kg

Stuffing

170g onion
200g minced pork
Sage (chopped)
Parsley (chopped)
40g breadcrumbs
Salt & pepper
Mustard
Egg to bind

Sauce

300ml demi-glace
100g mushrooms (chopped)
100g carrot (chopped)
1 stick celery (chopped)
1 clove garlic (chopped)
1 teaspoon tomato puree
140ml red wine
100ml port
Thyme
100g onion (chopped)
25g dried wide mushrooms (chopped)
80g fresh wild mushrooms
Bay Leaf

Method

Bone out the chicken, make a brown stock with the bones, make up the demi-glace sauce.

Place the dried wild mushrooms in a bowl, cover with hot water and leave to soften.  Strain the mushrooms and reserve the stock (soaking liquid), chop the mushrooms.

Prepare the stuffing, chop the onions, cook until soft and mix with the pork, herbs, crumbs and seasoning.  Bind with egg.  Spread the farce on the chicken, roll and tie.

Roast the chicken 180c / gas 5 for approx 90 minutes, baste occasionally.

For the sauce, sauté the onions, mushrooms, carrots, celery, garlic and the softened dried wild mushrooms until soft, add the tomato puree.  Pour in the wine, port and mushroom stock and reduce by half.  Add the demi-glace, bay leaf and thyme and cook out well.  Strain the sauce, return to a pan, add the fresh wild mushrooms and season.  Continue cooking the sauce until the correct consistency is achieved.

Serving suggestion

Slice the chicken and serve with sauce and garnish with roti potatoes and ribbons of carrots and courgettes.

If you would like to try your hand at making delicious recipes like this with the chefs themselves, why not join David and Bernard on their cooking and wine holiday in France?

Or feel free to explore our full range of cooking holidays in France here.