Pumpkin velouté with chicken wings, apples and almonds

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The trick to making a velouté is to get the sauce as smooth and velvety as possible. The sweet apples and crunchy amaretto biscuits in this pumpkin velouté recipe from Paul Ainsworth, make an enticing partnership with the smooth velouté and salty chicken wings.

First published in 2015

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

Pumpkin velouté

Chicken wings

Poached apples

To plate

  • 100g of amaretto biscuit

Equipment

  • Food processor or blender

Method

1
To make the velouté, peel and seed the pumpkin, then cut into 1 ½ cm cubes
2
Sweat the diced pumpkin in the butter over a low heat, and don’t let it colour. Remove the lid and cook the pumpkin until soft and dry
3
Bring the chicken stock to the boil. Add the hot stock to the pumpkin, and bring it back to the boil. Add the Parmesan cheese and remove from the heat
4
Blitz in a blender then sieve twice through a fine chinoise. Season with truffle oil, salt and pepper
5
To make the chicken wings, blitz the salt, peppercorns, coriander seeds, star anise, thyme and rosemary in a food processor until combined but not too fine a powder
6
Trim the winglet bones and drumettes off the wings, leaving just the centre section. Square off the bones at either end with a knife
7
Sprinkle the wings with the salt marinade. Cover and marinate for 4 hours in the fridge
8
Heat the oven to 110°C/Gas mark 1/4. Wash the salt off the wings with cold water and dry on a cloth. Tip into a pan
9
Melt the duck fat and pour over enough to cover the wings. Cover the pan, and cook for 2 ½ - 3 hours until tender
10
When the wings are cool enough to handle, push out the two bones from the middle of the wing, keeping the wing whole
11
Chill until cold and set firm. Trim into perfect squares. Place the chicken into a non-stick pan skin side down and cook until the skin is golden and crisp
12
To make the poached apples, cut the apples into wedges and trim off all the sharp edges off so they look banana shaped
13
Bring the water, amaretto, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla to the boil. Add the apples and poach for 5 minutes until the fruit is soft and tender
  • 400ml of water
  • 100ml of Amaretto
  • 100g of caster sugar
  • 1/2 cinnamon stick
  • 1 vanilla pod
14
To serve, heat the soup and pour it into soup jugs. Divide the crispy chicken wings between the bowls
15
Add a glazed apple on top of each wing and crush the amaretto biscuit over everything to finish. You may wish to add a little more truffle oil if you like. Pour the soup at the table
  • 100g of amaretto biscuit
First published in 2015

Southampton-born Paul Ainsworth got his break courtesy of Gary Rhodes, whom he worked for three years. After that, he moved to Gordon Ramsay's organisation, working first at his flagship Royal Hospital Road restaurant and then with Marcus Wareing at Petrus.

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