Chef Daniel Boulud's Chopster: A Luxurious Chicken and Lobster Dish

I'm Chef Daniel Boulud at Cafe Boulud at Maison Boulud. We would like to make you the chopster, a love affair between the chicken and the lobster. First, I'd like to introduce Chef Romain Premier, executive chef here at Cafe Boulud at Maison Boulud, and we are both from Lyon. We were talking about a recipe from our homeland, poulet aux écrevisses, which is a casserole of chicken and crayfish. Here we do roast chicken and lobster, our iconic dish here at Cafe Boulud at Maison Boulud. So, we have a beautiful chicken from

Pennsylvania. The chicken get some seasoning and herbs around and also garlic inside, and then we put the head of the lobster that we have broke down. Chicken love to be stuffed with something that's going to give wonderful flavor inside. If you're going to present your chicken on the table, I think it's better if you truss it. It will help the breast be more plump and also keep the legs tight to the chicken. I'm passing the needles on the bottom between the wings and the breast, and I'm going right under the corner of the legs. You don't want to pierce the breast. That will release too much juice and get it too dry.

If you're going to pay a lot of money for your chicken in a restaurant, you don't want a chicken to be massacred by a trussing. The chicken has been brined for 20 minutes, then we let it dry overnight. So, we have some thyme, some sage, garlic, some bay leaf to flavor the chicken while it's roasting. And of course, we cover nicely our chicken with a lot of butter. I like the butter to start slowly melt over the chicken, and then it will be used to baste the chicken as well. Voilà. You can watch TV here.

I'm putting just a little toothpick here to hold the tail straight. And I have a hot court-bouillon here. It's just aromatics, bouquet garni, a little bit of lemon, and let it cool like this gently on the corner of the stove now. Poaching the lobster very gently and very slowly to just partly cook the lobster, and then the lobster will be finished with the chicken after. While the lobster is lightly poaching, we're going to start to roast some of the wings for making sauces and jus. And here I'm just breaking them so it's a little bit easier. And of course, the neck as well. We have a base of sauce Américaine that we make in large quantity, but we are fortifying the sauce with of course, chicken and lobster.

Some salt and some Espelette pepper. Putting a little bit of herbs also inside. We put a little bit of black peppercorn, garlic. There's already tomato uh preparation inside the Américaine sauce, but I'm adding tomato paste here to really fortify also the flavor of tomato. So, this got flambéed with Cognac. Are you ready? Be careful now. It will give a complexity, aroma, and acidity, and tannin. So, this is not to be cooking for hours, but just to re-fortify that base we had already made. So, you see our chicken jus is a little bit more concentrated.

So, of course, you could do um a dish of chicken and lobster together, but we feel that the best accompaniment and combine the most the chicken and the lobster flavor together is the sauce Américaine. So, the sauce starting to reduce well. Now, adding some cream to the preparation will smooth the taste of the sauce, a delicate harmony between the lobster and the chicken. Voilà. Mhm. It is lightly spicy. There's a lot of complexity in it and a lot of finesse. So, the sauce is getting strained finely.

Look how beautiful this sauce Américaine is. So, we're going to reduce it a touch more when we plate it, but that's a very good base here. Let's break down the lobster. The claw. So, the tail. Break [snorts] the bottom like this, and then open wide and break the top. Voilà. For the knuckle. You can use a lobster cracker, but the back of a knife is also very good. You just have to be careful.

Voilà, one knuckle. And here is our lobster. Voilà. The lobster is getting closer and closer to the chicken. And of course, with that, you can keep that to make your sauce Américaine. You see the gills here? You want to take it out because this is bitter. Voilà. At Cafe Boulud at Maison Boulud, when you order the chopster, we present it to you before we carve it and [snorts] of course, serve it to you. Chef Romain found on a flea market a brass lobster. So, now we have this beautiful presentation with a little bit of thyme.

Here I have the lobster that was poached and is warm up with lobster butter to keep the lobster warm and happy. And we'll finish the dish in the dining room. Cafe Boulud at Maison Boulud is composed of the main dining room of Cafe Boulud and salon and private room of Maison Boulud. So, the chopster will be presented in the armor. I like to remove the legs first. And of course, make sure we take also the bottom of the legs here with what we call the soleus, which is the chicken oysters. So, the breast. We lift the breast after lifting the legs.

Now, I'm taking the stuffing, the lobster body, the herbs, and the garlic inside my duck press here. So, now I am pressing to extract the umami of lobster. And this will be added to the sauce, giving it a last boost of flavor. So, for the presentation, beautiful breast of chicken, beautiful lobster finished in the lobster butter, and the sauce. Voilà. This is one of a kind dish in America. Chicken is very delicate. Lobster is very delicate, too. Every bite, you have a little bit of lobster, you have a little bit of chicken, and you dip it into the sauce.

The chicken has been cooked with the aromatic and the lobster inside, and when you eat the two together, you can taste everything. It's really magical. I may have an idea that I will do a chicken farm by the sea in Maine. And the chicken can come and have conversation with the lobsters. And suddenly start to create a relationship. So, when they get into the chopster moment, they already feel like they know each other, they like each other. I think I'm going to write the children books about the chicken and the lobster.