Smoked chicken Ballotine stuffed with Couscous

[Mani]

Ingredients
1 Large Chicken
1 cup of dried couscous
1 bunch Spring Onions (Scallions?)
Dried Wild Mushrooms
Yellow pepper (I just used it as it was a 'fridge orphan')
2 cloves of garlic
2 sticks of celery
Sea Salt
Pepper

Method.
I de-boned the chicken the night before, made a stock from the carcass and trimmings (adding bay leaf, onion, garlic, celery to the stock pot).  Left the stock in the fridge overnight, and scrapped off the rendered chicken fat for use later (For reference, chicken fat makes great roast potatoes!)
The next day, I took the dried wild mushrooms and soaked in water to re-constitute them, keeping the soaking liquor afterwards.
I also made 'chicken lollipops to pop on BBQ with the ballotine (One shown on the picture below).



I heated 1 cup of the chicken stock I made the day before with the carcass, and when boiling, mixed with the cup of dried couscous, added a blob of the chicken fat, mixed and left to rest covered.

Next, I sautéed the spring onions, yellow pepper, celery, garlic, and mushrooms (Which had been finely chopped).

In the meantime, I soaked some maple wood chips in the mushroom soaking liquor, and topped up with water.  I was interested to see if it made a difference to the wood smoke.
I then  added the couscous to the sautéed veg and mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste.


The chicken was then salted on the interior, stuffed, trussed, brushed with the remaining chicken fat, a bit of salt to the exterior, then popped on the kettle BBQ for an hour of smoke (I wanted a light smoke) and cook till it got to temperature.
I used the kettle bbq as I wanted a higher temperature to crisp the skin.





Have to say, I loved the result... 
Went well with a salad and lightly pickled radishes.

[beefmann]

m mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmm looks great whens dinner

[3rensho]

Very nice indeed!!  Have been researching a ballotine (and galantine) for the last couple of days myself as we are having a dinner party in a while.  Hadn't thought of using couscous.  Good idea.

[Saber 4]

That looks like a great meal, and a good idea to try in the new 2 rack model for someone that can debone a chicken as well as you did.

Did you ever get to do your lamb fatty?

[3rensho]

Actually a chicken is pretty  simple to bone out.  Here is a good link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAekQ5fzfGM

[rveal23]

Actually a chicken is pretty  simple to bone out.  Here is a good link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAekQ5fzfGM

Great Video!!!!

[Saber 4]

Actually a chicken is pretty  simple to bone out.  Here is a good link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAekQ5fzfGM

Great Video!!!!

X2, I always love watching him cook.

[Mani]

Saber, hopefully doing the lamb fatty this week...

That is a good video on deboning the chicken... A lot simpler than how I did it!

I used the less simple way with a boning knife, still only took a couple of minutes...