- chicken breast – 1 pc.;
- carrots – 1 pc.;
- onion (medium) – 1 pc.;
- water – 5 glasses;
- garlic – 2 cloves;
- gelatin – 30 gr.;
- black peppercorns – 6 pcs.;
- cloves – 1 pc.;
- salt - to taste.
Cooking technology.
Place the chicken breast and carrots on the bottom of a deep pan and fill with cold water. Place the pan on the stove and bring to a boil, add salt. After boiling, add the washed, unpeeled onion to the pan. Onion peels will give the finished dish a pleasant tint. Before adding, it is better to pierce the onion in several places with a sharp knife, so it will better impart its aroma to the broth. For the same purpose, we will stick dried cloves into it.
Cook the chicken for at least 45 minutes. The meat should be soft and easily separated from the bone, so we periodically check the chicken for doneness with a sharp knife or fork.
When preparing Medusa, we adhere to a simple rule of thumb: it is better to overcook than undercook. In the first case, we will get a rich broth that compensates for the taste of boiled meat; in the second, we will get a tasteless broth with tough, undercooked chicken.
At the end of cooking, add black peppercorns. Remove the chicken breast and cool. Add grated garlic cloves to the pan with the broth and remove it from the stove.
While the chicken is cooling and the broth is saturated with the aroma of spices, it's time to make gelatin. Pour gelatin into a glass of warm broth and give it time to swell.
Strain the cooled and infused broth. Strain the broth with gelatin. Mix in one bowl, heat slightly and set aside from the stove. Taste and adjust for salt.
Place beautifully chopped boiled carrots and slices of hard-boiled egg on the bottom of the serving molds. Canned green peas look beautiful in the finished dish.
Separate the chicken breast from the bone and separate the meat into fibers. Fill the portion molds with meat. Fill the molds with cooled chicken broth and gelatin.
Once the molds have cooled completely, place them in the refrigerator. After 2-3 hours, the gelatin will harden and the dish can be served. Sprigs of fresh dill and parsley will help give a more refined and festive look to the chicken jellied “Medusa”.Peculiarities of preparation.
A few tips that will help you quickly master the preparation of this simple dish and get a good result on the first try:
1.Cook the chicken over low heat. Once boiling, reduce heat to as low as possible to maintain the simmering process.
2. The resulting foam must be removed. There will be little of it, but, nevertheless, this must be done so as not to spoil the taste of the broth.
3. The recipe indicates the required minimum spices. Nothing prevents you from adding something of your own to it, for example, bay leaf or celery leaf, coriander seeds.Parsley root will give the broth a beautiful and unusually attractive taste.
4.The color scheme of chicken aspic can be diversified by adding food coloring to the finished broth.
5. Never bring the broth with gelatin to a boil. It will certainly become cloudy, and the chicken aspic “Medusa” will lose its flavor.
6. The “jellyfish” will easily separate from the mold if the mold is immersed in hot water for a couple of seconds.
7. Feel free to use your imagination when serving. For example, you can garnish with a splash of thinly diluted mustard. If you pour a little broth into the bottom of the mold and let it harden, and only then lay out the decorations, you will get a beautiful 3D effect. The dish will only benefit from this.
