Braided chicken bread with mushrooms

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This recipe is a great way to use leftover chicken. Leftover baked chicken or boiled chicken left over from broth cooking, for example, will work well here. This puff is also a lifesaver for overcooked chicken meat. After all, in the process of cooking, we tear the chicken flesh into small pieces and mix it with béchamel sauce, so there is no trace of stiffness.

To simplify the cooking process in this recipe, I use yeast-free puff pastry dough, but you can make it with homemade yeast dough that you make yourself. If you feel like it, let me know in the comments and I’ll share the recipe next time.

Ingredients

For 4 large chicken breads (1 bread for 1-2 people):

• 1,000 g of puff pastry (no yeast)
• 650 g chicken thighs (or about 450-500 g of cooked chicken meat without bones)
• 150-200 g mushrooms
• 2 onion
• 40 g flour (~2 tablespoons)
• 40 g butter + 15 g for onions
• 300 ml of milk
• 4 cloves
• 1/2 tsp. coriander powder
• 1 tsp. granulated garlic
• 1 egg yolk
• 30 g sesame seeds (mix of white and black)
• 1/4 nutmeg
• salt, black pepper

Step by step directions

Take the frozen sheet dough out of the freezer at least 3 hours before baking, it must have time to defrost and warm to room temperature, otherwise there is a risk that it will not bake.

Preheat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F.

If you’re cooking with leftover chicken, just skip the next step (you can finely chop the mushrooms and pan-fry them).

Prepare the chicken thighs. Salt both sides and pan fry them skin side down for 2-3 minutes, turn them over and cook for a couple more minutes on the other side. Add the mushrooms to the pan and place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Separate the egg yolk from the white, and pour about 1 tbsp. of milk into the egg yolk. Whisk with a fork until smooth.

Peel two bulbs. Cut one into small cubes, and leave the other in one piece and stick 4 clove buds in it. Set aside the finely diced onions.

Prepare the sauce.

Pour 300 ml of milk into a small saucepan and put in the onion with the stuck cloves.

Add 1 tsp. granulated garlic and 1/2 tsp. coriander, grate 1/4 of the nutmeg. Heat stirring over low heat, turn off the heat when it begins to boil and set the saucepan aside.

In a dry pan, toast the sesame seeds for about 1-2 minutes, stirring. Place the sesame seeds in a separate bowl and set aside.

Pour 40 grams of flour into the same pan and fry over low heat, stirring constantly. If it starts to burn – lift the pan from the stove and let it cool for 15-20 seconds, continuing to stir. Cook until the unpleasant floury flavor is gone and the flour has a similar smell to roasted nuts. This will take about 2 minutes.

Add 40 g of butter to the skillet and mix into a mass with the flour. You have made “roux” – a mixture of flour and fat used for thickening. Set the roux aside in a separate bowl.

Clean the frying pan, add 15 g of butter, melt and fry on it the onion cut into small cubes until golden. Fry on low heat so that it does not burn and so that the oil does not overheat and smoke.

Back to the sauce.

Take the onion out of the sauté pan with the milk and discard. Place the casserole over low heat and add about 1/3 of the roux. Bring milk to a boil, stirring constantly with a whisk. Remove from heat and whisk well for 10 to 15 seconds. Notice the consistency. The consistency of the mass should resemble a liquid sauce. A little thicker than heavy cream. If the mass is still not thick enough – add some more roux and bring to the boil again. Salt the sauce to taste. You have made béchamel.

For me, about 1 tbsp of roux was enough to thicken it. Keep in mind that when it cools, it gets even thicker, so don’t overdo it. But if you do, you can always make the sauce thicker. Just add a little milk to the casserole and heat it, stirring often.

Finely chop the mushrooms.

Tear up the chicken. If you have a boiled fillet, it’s very easy to do this with a fork, running the tines of the fork over the fibers. With thighs, it’s a little more complicated – I used a fork to knead the meat and then tear it into smaller pieces with my fingers.

Mix mushrooms and chicken, add fried onions, pour sauce and stir.

Divide the puff pastry into 4 equal length rectangles. (It is more convenient for me to use 2 500g packages of dough, just dividing each in half). It is desirable to roll out the dough slightly in length to make it a little thinner, but I did not do this.

Place the chicken mixture in the center of the dough, and spread it out to take up 1/3 of the dough widthwise, leaving an indentation of 1 cm at the top and bottom.

Cut the dough on both sides in 1 cm increments. Do not cut all the way through to the filling, but leave a few mm apart.

Wrap the top and bottom ends.

Now take turns wrapping strips of dough from one edge to the other from different edges.

Even if you’re as crooked at decorating dough as I am, know that it will look much better and neater after baking.

Brush the puffs with a mixture of egg yolk and milk, sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake in preheated oven at 200°C / 400°F on convection mode for 25-30 minutes.