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Chicken and Spring Vegetable Aspic

I mean, why not bring back a mid-century classic?
Course Main Course
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Resting Time 3 hours
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 8 people
Author Lucia Hawley

Ingredients

For the Stock

  • 1 lb chicken thighs bone-in
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 stalk of celery
  • 1/2 medium onion peeled
  • 1 clove garlic peeled

For the Aspic

  • 1 lb asparagus ends chopped off and stalks peeled
  • 1/2 head fennel sliced thinly
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • Juice from 1/2 lemon
  • 2 tablespoons fennel fronds finely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 5 tablespoons gelatin I like Great Lakes or Vital Proteins

Instructions

To make the stock

  1. Place the chicken thighs in a large pot and cover with water. Bring up to a boil, then remove the chicken thighs from the water and discard the water. Rinse off the thighs and gently scrub the bones—we’re trying to remove impurities from the bones to help make a clearer stock.
  2. Place the cleaned thighs back in the same pot and cover with fresh water, at least 6 cups. Add the carrot, onion, celery and garlic, then bring up to a boil and turn down to a simmer and allow to cook gently for 60 minutes.
  3. When done, remove the pot from heat, take the chicken thighs out and allow them to cool separately, and discard the carrot, onion, celery and garlic. If you’d like even clearer stock, put the stock into two mason jars and allow to cool in the fridge. Once cooled, remove and discard the fat caps that have risen to the top of the liquid. If you don’t mind a little fat in your aspic, you can skip this step!

Preparing the vegetables

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil with a good pinch of salt in it, then blanch the asparagus for 4 minutes. Remove from the water and immediately transfer to a bowl of water filled with ice to stop the cooking process.
  2. Repeat this blanching techniques with the peas and fennel (they can be blanched together), blanching for 2-3 minutes and also transferring to the ice bath.
  3. While the vegetables are blanching, shred the chicken thighs off of the bone and discard the bones (or save them for making soups later).

Preparing the aspic

  1. To make the aspic set, gently heat up 4 cups of the chicken stock. While those are heating, bloom the gelatin in 2 cups of the cool stock. Once bloomed (takes a few minutes), pour the cool stock with the gelatin into the warming stock and whisk to combine evenly and to gently heat the gelatin throughout. Remove from heat. You'll have 6 cups of stock total.

  2. Pour in the lemon juice and sea salt and whisk to combine. You’re now ready to assemble the aspic!

Assembly

  1. In a serving dish of your choice (be creative!), start to layer the vegetables, lemon zest, fennel fronds and chicken. I started with a layer of asparagus, lemon zest, peas, fennel fronds, chicken, lemon zest, asparagus and then finished with the fennel, but do what you’d like! This is the fun part!
  2. After arranging all the vegetables and chicken, gently pour the lemon-flavored and gelatin-bloomed chicken stock over them. I like to do this with the dish already on a shelf in the fridge so I don’t need to worry about trying to walk around with a dish very full of liquid!
  3. After gently pouring in enough liquid to cover and fill to the brim, cover the dish with plastic wrap and allow to set for 12 hours or overnight.
  4. When ready to serve, first get some hot water going in the sink, and plug that sink so you get a few inches of a hot water bath ready!
  5. Take the aspic out, discard the plastic wrap and allow it to sit for 30 seconds in the hot water—you’re trying to warm the dish briefly so it slips out easily.
  6. Get your serving plate ready, then turn the plate upside down to place on top of the dish with the aspic in it. Moment of truth now—swiftly flip the whole thing upside down and unmold it! Woohoo! Nailed it.
  7. Slice to serve.