Recipe for Bouchées à la Reine and Alsatian pasta

by | Updated on 4/02/2020 | Alsatian recipes | 0 comments

recipe-bouchee-reine

Ahhhh the Bouchées à la Reine! A great classic of the French and Alsatian cuisine in which we sometimes don’t dare to get into. Puff pastry crusts, a creamy filling… A real treat! For a festive meal or a good Sunday lunch with the family, this is a recipe that will please everybody, I can tell you!

Bouchées à la reine take a little time to make, and some versions of the recipe can be “impressive” (such as the calf sweetbread version, for example).

That said, there is a relatively simple and accessible version to make: the one based on chicken, mushrooms, and poultry dumplings. This is the recipe that I am going to propose to you today.

Alsatian pasta as a side dish

Before we get to the heart of the subject, I wanted to talk to you about the side dish I serve with the Bouchées à la Reine. The tradition in Alsace is to enjoy them with good egg pasta, Alsatian pasta, such as those of the Valfleuri brand, which look a bit like Italian tagliatelle. These “Nüdles” are the perfect pasta to accompany the bouchées à la reine: they will “catch” the sauce and the filling well, bringing extra generosity to the dish (because in Alsace, we are generous in our cooking).

Pasta from Alsace is egg-based, which means that even if the pasta is dry, it is as good as fresh pasta! Moreover, they benefit from a PGI (Protected Geographical Indication): their production origin and specificity are guaranteed. Only pasta made in Alsace, according to the specifications, can benefit from this designation.

Thanks to this, pasta from Alsace has a unique flavour: you will therefore understand why I can only choose it as an accompaniment to my succulent bouchées à la reine!

Recipe for Bouchées à la Reine

Now let’s move on to the recipe for the bouchées à la Reine. It takes a little bit of time to make, but if you take away the cooking time of the chicken, they are pretty quick to prepare.

The garnish (the mixture of chicken, mushrooms, dumplings and sauce) warms up very well, so don’t hesitate to prepare it in advance.  

Preparation time: 20 minutes 

Cooking time: 1 hour / 1h15 depending on the size of the chicken

Ingredients for 6 persons

  • 6 puff pastry crusts bought at the baker’s (or homemade)
  • 400 g of Alsace pasta (here, I took the Nüdles N°5 of the ValFleuri brand)
  • 1 chicken from 1,3 to 1,5 kg
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 onion
  • 1 “bouquet garni”
  • 150 g poultry dumplings 
  • 200 g button mushrooms
  • 60 g butter
  • 60 g flour
  • 25 cl white wine (Riesling)
  • 25 cl milk
  • 10 cl cream
  • Salt, pepper, nutmeg

Preparation

Cook the whole chicken in a pot with the carrot, onion and bouquet garni in 1 litre of water (or more, your chicken must be covered with water).

Cook for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes at low heat. You can clean the impurities that could rise using a sieve spoon. The chicken is well cooked when you see that the meat of the thighs comes off the bones easily. Remove from the heat. Strain the broth through a strainer and leave to cool.

Fry the mushrooms cut into small pieces in a pan. They should be lightly coloured.

For the béchamel sauce, melt the butter in a thick-bottomed saucepan, then add the flour. As soon as the mixture thickens, add the broth, mix well with a whisk, add the white wine and milk, and let the sauce reduce for 10 minutes.

Bone the chicken, cut the meat and dumplings into small cubes. Add them to the sauce with the mushrooms.

Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. At the last minute add the cream and reheat without boiling.

Cook the Alsatian pasta: I recommend a cooking time of 9 minutes, in a small broth.

Garnish the puff pastry crusts with this filling and serve the rest on the side with Alsace Nüdles pasta.

My photos of the recipe for Bouchées à la Reine

Enjoy your meal! 🙂

Marine

Marine

Élevée aux Bretzels, je suis amoureuse de l'Alsace, mais j'adore aussi voyager, et la cuisine est aussi un chouette moyen de découvrir d'autres régions ou pays ! C'est en 2010, pendant mes soirs et week-end, que j'ai ouvert mon blog Miss Crumble. Ce blog, je le vois comme mon livre digitale de recettes salées et sucrées. J'y partage des recettes alsaciennes traditionnelles ou des recettes d'autres horizons. La cuisine, c'est l'émotion des papilles !

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