Excellent with pasta Alfredo as an appetizer!
| Prep Time: | 45 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 55 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 1 3 1/2-pound chicken |
Ingredients
- ½ yellow onion, diced
- 1 small carrot, diced
- ½ rib celery, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced, or to taste
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary, or more to taste
- kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 (3 1/2) pound whole chicken
- kosher salt to taste
- kitchen twine
- 1 pound buttercrust pastry dough
- all-purpose flour, or as needed
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons water
- fleur de sel to taste
- 1 tablespoon butter
- salt to taste
- ⅔ cup rose wine
- 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes
Instructions
- Combine onion, carrot, and celery in a bowl. Add garlic, rosemary, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Drizzle in olive oil. Mix stuffing well.
- Trim away the wing tips of the chicken. Season the whole surface and cavity generously with salt. Spoon the stuffing into the cavity, reserving any extra for the sauce later. Tie the legs together with string. Refrigerate until ready to wrap.
- Place dough onto a well floured surface. Sprinkle more flour on top. Roll out into a large circle about 1/8 inch thick. Place chicken, breast-side down, in the center of the dough. Wrap dough over the chicken. Cut off sections of excess dough and patch them over areas with less coverage.
- Beat egg and water together and brush some egg wash over the redistributed dough. Press the rest of dough into the new seams. Continue folding dough over the chicken, brushing with egg wash and patching pieces together as needed, until chicken is fully covered. Do not stretch the dough too thin.
- Flip chicken over onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat. Press on the inside of both legs to enhance their shape. Refrigerate until crust is cold, about 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Brush the remaining egg wash all over the chicken. Sprinkle fleur de sel on top.
- Bake in the preheated oven until crust is beautifully browned, about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Transfer chicken to a pie dish and let rest while preparing the sauce, 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Cut a small hole into the back of the chicken and spoon out 1/2 cup of the stuffing. Place in a saucepan with 1 tablespoon butter. Add a pinch of salt. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until vegetables are tender, about 3 minutes. Add wine and the pan drippings. Cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Add cold butter. Turn off heat and stir sauce vigorously until butter melts.
- Slice chicken and serve with the sauce.
- If making my
- , you should (ideally) use a bit over 1 recipe to fully cover the chicken.
- Feel free to substitute the rosemary with any fresh herb, fleur de sel with any coarse salt, rose wine with white wine, and stock with a splash of stock.
- If you use a 3 1/2 pound chicken for this, then the roasting/resting time should work out, but if your bird is larger, you’ll have to add more time, and should probably use a thermometer to check your work.
- A little of the sauce goes a long way; this makes enough for 4 to 6 people to have a spoonful or two.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 850 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 37 g |
| Cholesterol | 216 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 46 g |
| Saturated Fat | 18 g |
| Sodium | 787 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 55 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Loved it.
In case anyone is wondering, it works with Cornish hens. Double batch of the buttercrust pastry (with lemon zest and poultry seasoning) for three hens. Used lemon, shallots, garlic, rosemary, sage, and thyme as the aromatics. I believe they cooked for about an hour. The pastry could have gone a bit longer, but I was concerned about overcooking the birds. Because this year is so different, and we wouldn’t be celebrating with non-household family members, I decided to do a close-to-but-not-quite-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Without meaning to at first, I chose all Chef John recipes. Pictured: Whole Cornish Hen Pie Baked Potato Puffs Maple Walnut Cranberry Sauce French Onion Green Bean Casserole Not pictured: Pumpkin Panna Cotta (only non-Chef John part of the meal) CJ’s Ginger Snaps (the only ones worth eating anymore) Flipping amazing Thanksgiving dinner! (PS this is stretched a little to fit AR’s specifications)
Simply amazing! My family and guests loved it and I will make it again! The presentation is over the top. It opens like a gift for those at the table. I am so glad I tried it and so were those that dined with us.! Yum, yum! It felt and tasted like a treasured family recipe. BBlee
We used thyme and sage instead of Rosemary. Made the crust from scratch. Added another 30 minutes to the cook time. Chicken was moist and tasty. Delicious! We are planning to serve it for guests in the post COVID-19 era!
This was phenomenal. And not as hard as it looks. My very well-stocked grocery store only had puff pastry so I used that. I also had to use a much larger chicken, over 5 pounds. I just added about 20 minutes to cook time. The rectangular pastry dough was actually easier to work with than the round pie dough in the video. I placed the chicken on it diagonally and didn’t need to do any cutting and pasting, just a little stretching. (To prevent tearing the dough, I cut both wings completely off and stuffed them in with vegetables.) And I just used a dry white wine for sauce and did not worry with the sel fleur where it was called for. I tested it with a meat thermometer to ensure it was done. Pressed Rosemary sprigs into the dough as well. Sorry for all the changes Chef John! But your recipes are always wonderful. Thank You!
This is DELICIOUS! The chicken is tender and juicy and the skin under the dough is sticky not slimy. The breading is moist and flaky and sweet, just crunchy enough outside and perfectly soft inside. The gravy is soooo good, we are going to try dipping bread in it also. I will DEFINITELY make this again. also, I used a 5.5 pound chicken and just used 1.5 of the recipe and cook times, turned out perfectly!!
I loved how this looked and tasted. I am not great at making pie dough but used Chef John’s Buttercrust Pastry Dough found on allrecipes site. It came out perfectly. I could not find a 3.5 lb chicken and could only get a 5 lb chicken which I cooked for 90 minutes. Note it needs to sit for 30 minutes minimum out of the oven.
I absolutely loved this!! I would definitely recommend this as a holiday or special dinner since it’s so impression looking. I was a bit nervous because I used a 6# chicken instead of the 3# but I doubled the pastry recipe and cooked for 2 hours and it turned out great!!