Su Filindeu With Chicken Consommé
Introduction
The legendary su filindeu pasta is traditionally served in a mutton broth, but we don't think the good folk of Sardinia would begrudge us serving it with a classic chicken consommé as we are here.
This recipe is a real labour of love. It's awfully wasteful, terribly expensive, it takes ages to make and will be demolished in 2-minutes flat when you serve it to your delighted guests.
The first time we served it, our normally fussy nephew practically inhaled it without drawing breath. When he picked up the bowl to guzzle down every last drop, we knew we were onto a winner.
Pro tip
Here we're using a pressure cooker for speed, but our ultimate method for making a broth is sous vide as this helps to draw out the flavours incredibly slowly which helps with its clarity.
Ingredients for 1.5l consommé
| Chicken breast | 2kg |
| Carrot | 250g |
| Onion | 250g |
| Celery | 125g |
| Tomato puree | 30g |
| Powdered gelatine | 25g |
| Parsley | 20g |
| Rosemary | 5g |
| Peppercorns | 5g |
| Bay leaves | 5g |
| Dried porcini | 5g |
Method
To make a consommé, first you need to make a broth. Chop the celery, onion, carrot, and chicken into small cubes about the size of a pea.
Add 1.25kg of chicken and all the other ingredients to a pressure cooker, mix well and add enough cold water to cover everything, about 2 litres.
Cook for 45-minutes and allow the cooker to depressurise naturally.
Pass the broth through a fine mesh sieve or muslin.
Blend the remaining chicken with the strained broth. It will look like super cloudy milk and at this stage you’ll probably find it hard to believe that soon it will be transformed into a crystal-clear consommé.
Add the chicken broth to a saucepan and heat as slowly as possible. You need to aim for a very slow simmer; do not let it boil.
After a few minutes the chicken will start rising to the surface to form a ‘raft’. As it rises it will take with it all the microscopic particles that are responsible for a broth's cloudiness.
Make a small hole in the middle of the raft to release some pressure and continue to simmer gently for a good 30-minutes.
Strain the liquor as gently as possible through muslin, and then [optionally] through a coffee filter.
Season to taste (as a rough guide we recommend 0.5% of the total weight) and you now have a beautiful consommé.
The final dish to feed eight
| Consommé | 1.5l |
| Chicken breast | x1 |
| Su filindeu | 200g |
| Fresh pecorino | 200g |
| Fresh parsley | to garnish |
Method
Pan fry your chicken breast and shred with a pair of forks. Break the su filindeu into bite-size pieces and chop the pecorino into cubes about the size of a die.
Bring the consommé to a rolling boil and add the su filindeu. Cook until al dente (no more than 2-3 minutes) and plate up, sprinkling the chicken, pecorino, and parsley on top.