Verjus Recipes

POULET AU VERJUS - CHICKEN WITH VERJUS

Steps:

• First, make verjus:.
• Pull the grapes away from their stems, then press them, extracting as much of the juice as possible. Filter this juice through muslin, a jelly bag, or use coffee filter paper. Bottle this and sterilize it, or freeze some in ice cube trays. Or use it up within the next few days.
• Brown the chicken cut in pieces for a good ten minutes.
• Add the chopped garlic and cook briefly.
• Pour in a large glass of verjus, and some chicken stock made with 1/2 cube 1/2 cup of hot water.
• Add the chopped parsley.
• Cook over low heat for 20 minutes, partially covered until towards the end, when you take the cover off.
• Use more verjus, if you want. It is a pleasant, fruity taste with a tart, vinegary quality.
• Serve with mashed potatoes or Sarlat Potatoes, recipe#209855, fresh green beans, or other summer fare.

VERJUS

Steps:

• Use at least 3 bunches of under ripe grapes. You could make bushel fulls, too!
• Press the juice out of the grapes, using your fingers, or by crushing the bunches with bricks, or by using a wine press.
• A wine press is a small barrell with a weighted lid on a substantial screw that winds down, down, down on the grapes. The liquid pours out of a spigot low on the barrel.
• Strain and filter the juice, discarding the skins and seeds. Strain with muslin, a jelly bag, coffee filters, anything that will work to produce a clear liquid.
• If you make a small quantity, use within 4 or 5 days. A larger quantity should be bottled and sterilized, or put in jars and sterilized.
• The formatting of this recipe required me to give a minimum 2 ingredients, so I entered bunches of grapes twice!