Mash and Gravy

Ingredients

Mash:

8 large peeled potatoes (desiree, Kennebec, Russet or Pontiac)
200 g good quality salted Butter
300 ml fresh cream

Gravy:

2 onions, peeled and roughly diced
2 carrots, peeled and roughly diced
2 sticks of celery roughly diced
5 cloves of garlic roughly smashed
2 fresh bay leaves
2 sprigs of fresh sage
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 star anise
20 chicken wings
Vegetable oil
60 ml sherry
120 ml white wine
150 g plain flour

Garnish

500 g chicken skin
10 sprigs of thyme
150 g podded sugar snap peas
Cottonseed oil for deep frying

Method

Gravy (start 3 days in advance):

Boil 3 liters of water in a large saucepan with 3 pinches of salt. Place chicken skin in water, remove from heat to let sit for 2 mins before straining. Lay the chicken fat on a cooling rack in the refrigerator until the fat on the skin has solidified (approx 5 hours). Scrape the fat from skin and reserve. Place scraped skin in dehydrator and dehydrate at 60 C until the skin has become solid (approx 12 hours) let cool to room temp.

Knuckle chicken wings and toss in oil, roast at 180 C for approx. 1 hour until golden brown. Drain off all excess chicken fat into a metal bowl (reserve).

Remove chicken wings from roasting tin (reserve) add diced vegetables, star anise, fresh herbs and garlic to roasting tin, with a wooden spoon scrape and mix the caramelised brown bits at the bottom of the roasting tin with the diced vegetables and return to the oven to roast for another 10 mins. Place the roasting tin on the stove top and add the sherry and white wine and cook for 5 mins or until the alcohol has evaporated. Add 1 litre of water to the roasting tin, continuously scraping the roasting tray, transfer all of the ingredients from the roasting tray to a large saucepan, add an additional 3 liters of water and bring to the boil and simmer gently for 4 hours.

Strain the stock though a fine sieve and refrigerate over night. The next day remove the solidified fat from the top of the stock (reserve, you will now have 3 types of chicken fat). In a large saucepan place the 3 types of chicken fat and the plain flour, cook until the flour has turned a slightly brown/sandy colour, add the chilled chicken stock slowly while continuously stirring with a wooden spoon. Bring to a slow boil and season with salt and pepper and remove from heat. Let cool to room temp then refrigerate.

Mash:

Steam potatoes preferably whole and unpeeled until soft (approximately 80 mins) once soft, remove skin and place through potato masher or ricer. Keep warm, place cream and butter in a saucepan and heat (do not boil) once hot, fold through potato, continue folding until you have an even consistency, season with salt and white pepper.

Garnish:

Fill a large saucepan with cottonseed oil and bring to 180C, deep fry room temperature dehydrated chicken skin until golden brown and crispy (approximately 1 min) season with sea salt and set aside. Fill a saucepan with water, season heavily with salt and bring to a rapid boil. Blanch podded sugar snap peas in rapidly boiling salted water, refresh in iced water bath, strain and set aside. Pick thyme from stems, set aside.

Serve:

Reheat gravy in a small saucepan (correct consistency with boiling water and season with salt and pepper). In a small side bowl ladle in gravy first then quenelle a single scoop of mashed potato, sprinkle over blanched green peas then picked fresh thyme. Finally place chicken skin on the top.

Recipe provided by Howard's Cantina