Chicken breast rolled, poached gently, and served over root vegetables glazed in Roscoff onion butter. A ballotine is simply a piece of poultry wrapped tight and cooked in liquid, which keeps the breast far juicier than a hot pan ever will. Bordier's Roscoff Onion Butter earns its place twice: once to glaze the vegetables at the start, and once to mount the Muscat cream sauce at the end, so the same sweet pink onion runs through the whole plate. Plan on about an hour from start to serving, for two.
At a glance
- Difficulty: Medium
- Serves: 2
- Active time: About 30 minutes (our estimate, Bordier does not state one)
- Cook: 15 minutes to poach the ballotines, plus roughly 25 minutes for the vegetables
- Key ingredient: Bordier Roscoff Onion Butter
Why this works
Jean-Yves Bordier added the Roscoff onion butter in 2016, after meeting the Johnnies of Roscoff, the Breton growers who once cycled through Britain with strings of pink onions over their shoulders. The pink AOP Roscoff onion is mild and genuinely sweet, closer to a shallot than to a yellow cooking onion, and it is folded into hand-churned Breton butter rather than cooked into it. That matters here. You are not adding onion flavor to the dish so much as adding a butter that already tastes finished.
The technique is two classical French moves stacked together. Glazing means cooking the vegetables in butter and a little liquid until the liquid reduces to a shiny coating rather than a sauce, which is why the recipe tells you to deglaze with wine and then with water as needed. Mounting a sauce means whisking cold butter into a hot reduction off the heat so the fat emulsifies instead of splitting, which gives you gloss and body without flour or cornstarch. The onion butter does both jobs, so the vegetables and the sauce taste like they came from the same idea.
Ingredients
Bordier gives a general assortment of seasonal vegetables rather than fixed weights, so buy what looks good and keep the total to a generous couple of handfuls per person.
| Ingredient | Metric | US |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken breasts | 2 | 2 |
| Bordier Roscoff Onion Butter | 60 g | About 2 oz, or 1/4 cup |
| Muscat wine | 10 cl | 3 1/3 fl oz, a scant 1/2 cup |
| Whipping or single cream | 20 cl | 6 3/4 fl oz, about 3/4 cup |
| Chicken stock cubes | 2 | 2 |
| Seasonal vegetables: purple carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, tuberous chervil, yellow beets, fava beans, brown mushrooms | An assortment | An assortment |
Method
Step 1: Glaze the vegetables and wrap the chicken
Peel and chop all the vegetables. Melt 25 g (5 teaspoons) of the Roscoff onion butter in a pot and start with the root vegetables alone. After 10 minutes, deglaze with 5 cl (1/4 cup) of the Muscat, then keep cooking uncovered until the roots are golden and tender, adding a splash of water to deglaze again whenever the pot looks dry. Add the mushrooms and fava beans at the very end so they stay firm. Season the chicken breasts, wrap each one individually and tightly in plastic wrap, and pierce the wrap in a few places with a fork.
Step 2: Poach the ballotines and finish the sauce
Bring 1 liter (1 quart) of water to a boil and dissolve the stock cubes in it. Drop the heat so the liquid is barely trembling, then poach the wrapped ballotines for 15 minutes. Lift them out, unwrap them, and hold them somewhere warm. Reduce a ladleful of the poaching stock with the remaining Muscat, then stir in the cream and keep reducing. Off the heat, fold in the remaining onion butter, taste for seasoning, and blitz with an immersion blender right before you serve.
Tips from our kitchen
- Keep the poaching liquid below a simmer. If it bubbles, the breast tightens and squeezes out its juices. You want the surface barely shivering, somewhere around 80 C (175 F). That is the whole point of poaching rather than roasting.
- Wrap tighter than feels necessary. Lay the breast on a sheet of plastic, roll it up, then twist both ends in opposite directions like a candy wrapper until the meat is a firm cylinder. A loose ballotine poaches into a floppy oval and slices badly.
- Add the butter to the sauce off the heat. Bordier butter is roughly 82 percent fat and will emulsify beautifully into a warm reduction, but a boiling one will break it into a greasy slick. Pull the pan off the burner, then whisk in cold cubes a few at a time.
- Cook the roots by hardness, not by the clock. Beets and Jerusalem artichokes take considerably longer than carrots. Start the densest ones first and stagger the rest in, or cut the slower vegetables smaller so everything finishes together.
- The water for poaching is not in Bordier's ingredient list. The method calls for 1 liter (1 quart) with the two stock cubes dissolved in it, so have that ready before you start. Bordier also does not publish a total time for this recipe, and our own estimate of about an hour is guidance rather than theirs.
- Substitution for the Muscat. Any off-dry white with some fruit will do the same work, a Vouvray demi-sec or a Riesling among them. Avoid anything heavily oaked, which turns bitter as it reduces.
How to serve it
Slice each ballotine into thick rounds, fan them over the glazed vegetables, and spoon the emulsified sauce around rather than over so the chicken keeps a clean edge. A crusty baguette is not optional here, because the sauce is the best thing on the plate. If you want to build a full French dinner around it, our guide to Bordier butter covers which flavors work as a finishing butter and which are better used raw on bread.
Where to buy Bordier Roscoff Onion Butter in the US
The French Pantry ships Bordier butter across the United States in insulated overnight packaging, straight from the workshop in Brittany.
- Churned Roscoff Onion Butter by Bordier (4.4 oz): sweet pink AOP Roscoff onion folded through hand-churned Breton butter, made for glazing vegetables and finishing sauces.
If you want to compare it against the rest of the range before you commit, browse the Maison Bordier collection.
Frequently asked questions
How much Bordier butter do I need for this recipe?
The recipe calls for 60 g, and a Bordier block is 125 g (4.4 oz). One block covers it with roughly half left over, which is plenty for bread the next morning.
Can I use a different Bordier butter?
Yes. Salted butter gives you the same glaze and the same emulsified sauce without the onion note. Seaweed butter is the more interesting swap if you want to push the dish toward the coast rather than the fields.
What if I cannot find Muscat?
Use another off-dry white wine with a little residual sugar. The wine is there to balance the cream, so a bone-dry white will make the sauce taste flat.
How should I store the butter?
Keep it refrigerated in its wrapper, and press the paper back against the cut face so the surface does not oxidize. Bring only the portion you need up to room temperature. Bordier butter also freezes well if you wrap it tightly.
Does the butter need to be refrigerated?
Yes. Bordier butter is a fresh, hand-churned product and ships cold. Move it to the refrigerator as soon as it arrives.
Can I make any of this ahead?
The vegetables reheat well in a covered pan with a spoonful of water. Poach the ballotines and build the sauce to order, since both suffer from sitting.
Related reading
- Bordier Butter: What It Is, Why Chefs Love It, and How to Use It
- How to Choose Your French Butter: A Buyer's Guide
- Paysan Breton: The Breton Butter Guide
Recipe and photograph adapted from Maison Bordier, with thanks. The French Pantry is an authorized US retailer of Bordier butter.