Dinner party

I decided to throw a little dinner party with a few of my friends last night and what better opportunity to experiment. :P One little trouble, one of the boys is not a fan of seafood and fish to which I'm accustomed to cooking. I didn't feel ready to embark on cooking red meat, so I brought home two whole chicken to toy with. Admittedly, I'm a bit squirmish when it comes to touching raw meat especially when it still looks like a whole carcass, but I was deeply intrigued by the anatomy of a whole chicken since last week when I cooked a whole baked chicken encased in salt crust.

Prosciutto lemon parcels of chicken thighs

Prosciutto lemon parcels of chicken thighs
I borrowed Julie's idea (Masterchef Australia) of deboning chicken thighs, rolled and poaching them in its own broth (made using the bones) then baked wrapped with a slice of prosciutto and lemon. I tied mine up with a piece of string to keep them all together and of course adhering with the fancy idea of dinner party, it's always fun to cut off the string upon serving.

Truffled baked chicken breast

Truffled baked chicken breast
First I divided out the chicken into breast portions and thigh portions. I slipped truffle butter between the skin of the breast and baked it in my toaster sized oven. I sincerely do not recommend doing it with a small oven. There were some serious hissing and fire balls inside mine, festive yes but there might be more important safety issue. Anyway, this chicken goes well with aioli with just a touch of sesame oil, too much will overpower the delicate flavour of the truffle. The same sauce is also suitable for the thigh parcels.

Chocolate pot with grissini and fruit

Chocolate pot with grissini and fruit
For dessert, I made a lazy chocolate pot with strawberries and grissini made with some leftover from pizza dough. For the chocolate pot, I used about 200g of dark chocolate, finely chopped. Mix the chocolate with roughly 1 1/2 cup of cream and just heat while stirring with a balloon whisk until you get a smooth consistency. The chocolate will be between drinking chocolate and dipping chocolate thickness when warm but if you give it a little bit of time to cool it will be thicker. Serve with strawberries and banana.