Chicken and Mushroom Fiori with Sauce Poulet au Vin Jaune

This is a special-occasion plate through and through — the kind of dish you build a dinner party around, serve as a small course between starters and mains, or present as the centrepiece when you want to show off. Sauce poulet au vin jaune is one of the great classics of the Jura, a glossy, deeply savoury cream sauce built on reduced yellow wine and morels, and wrapping that flavour around a filling of braised chicken and mushroom duxelles inside rose-shaped filled pasta is the kind of trick that turns a simple idea into something unforgettable.

How to cook

This is a multi-stage project, so the most important thing is to sequence it properly. Start with the pasta dough so it has time to rest, poach the chicken while the dough rests, build the filling while the chicken cools, then shape the fiori. The sauce comes last so it’s fresh and glossy when the pasta hits the plate. Budget about two hours before service and you’ll work through it without rushing.

Start with the pasta. Mound the 00 flour (300g) on a clean wooden or marble surface and make a wide, deep well in the centre — wide enough that the wet ingredients won’t escape when you start whisking. Crack the yolks (4) and whole eggs (2) into the well, add the olive oil (1 tablespoon) and the salt (1 teaspoon), and whisk with a fork while gradually pulling in flour from the inside walls of the well. Keep whisking until the mixture thickens into a shaggy dough, then use a bench scraper to bring it all together. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 8-10 minutes until the dough is smooth, elastic, and slightly tacky to the touch — not sticky, not dry. Wrap it tightly in cling film and leave it at room temperature for at least 45 minutes so the gluten relaxes. This rest is non-negotiable; skip it and the dough will snap back on you when you try to roll it.

While the dough rests, poach the chicken thighs. Drop them into lightly salted water or, better, chicken stock, bring to a bare simmer, and cook for 18-20 minutes until they’re cooked through and tender — don’t boil them hard, or they’ll turn fibrous. Lift them out, cool for a few minutes until you can handle them, then shred them into extremely fine strands. You want them almost stringy, because larger chunks will tear the thin pasta when you fill and shape it.

Soak the dried morels (20g) in 200ml of warm (not hot) water for 20 minutes. Morels hold onto grit from the forest floor, so lift them gently from the soaking liquid rather than pouring them out — any grit will stay in the bowl. Strain the soaking liquid through a coffee filter or a double layer of muslin to catch any remaining grit, and save it — this is liquid gold for the sauce. Chop the drained morels roughly and set aside.

Now the duxelles, which is the heart of the filling. Chopping the mushrooms finely matters: you want them essentially minced, nearly the texture of couscous, because anything larger will bulge through the pasta. If you’re quick with a knife, do it by hand; otherwise a few short pulses in a food processor works — but stop before it turns to paste. Melt the butter (2 tablespoons) in a skillet over medium heat and sweat the diced shallot with a pinch of salt for 3 minutes until soft and translucent, no colour. Add the grated garlic and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Tip in the chopped mushrooms and cook, stirring often, for 10-12 minutes. At first they’ll release water and look wet, but keep going — you want to drive off every drop, and the mixture should end up dry, dark, and fragrant. A wet duxelles will make your pasta soggy and burst it in the water.

Deglaze with the sherry or vin jaune (2 tablespoons), let it cook off completely, then stir in the cream (2 tablespoons) and the fresh thyme (1 tablespoon). Cook for 2 more minutes until the mixture comes together into a glossy, cohesive paste. Scrape it into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature — if you fold warm filling into the chicken, the egg yolk will start to cook.

Fold the shredded chicken, grated Parmesan (2 tablespoons), and raw egg yolk (1) into the cooled duxelles. The egg yolk is what binds everything together and gives the filling its silky texture after cooking. Season generously with salt and white pepper — and really taste it. The filling should be bold and deeply seasoned, because once it’s enclosed in pasta and bathed in cream sauce, anything less than aggressive seasoning will read as flat. Chill the filling for about 20 minutes until it firms up enough to pipe or spoon cleanly.

On to the sauce, which is actually easier than it sounds once you’ve got the components ready. Melt a knob of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and sweat the diced shallots (2 small) for 3-4 minutes until soft, again no colour. Pour in the vin jaune (200ml) — or your substitute — and turn the heat up. Reduce hard until only a third remains, about 4-5 minutes. Vin jaune is expensive and rare, but a dry Fino sherry or an aged Savagnin from the Jura (if you can find one) gets you 90% of the way there, and it’s the reduction that concentrates the oxidative, nutty, almost-sherry-like character that defines the sauce.

Add the chicken stock (400ml) and the strained morel soaking liquid, turn the heat down slightly, and let it reduce by half, about 10-12 minutes. You want the liquid to thicken noticeably and the flavour to concentrate into something deeply savoury. Stir in the double cream (150ml) and the chopped morels and simmer gently for 5-6 minutes until the sauce coats the back of a spoon — drag a finger through the sauce on the spoon and it should leave a clear path that doesn’t run.

Finish the sauce by whisking in the cold butter (30g) a cube at a time, letting each piece emulsify before adding the next. This is where the sauce gets its restaurant-level gloss — the emulsified butter adds richness and that shiny, light-catching finish you see in proper French kitchens. Add the sherry vinegar (1 teaspoon) at the end to cut the richness and wake up the sauce, then season carefully with salt and white pepper. Keep it warm over the lowest possible heat while you finish the pasta — don’t let it boil again, or the emulsion will break.

Now the fiori. Divide the rested dough into 4 pieces and keep three of them wrapped at all times — pasta dough dries out fast. Flatten the first piece with your palms and pass it through the widest setting of a pasta machine. Fold into thirds and pass through again a few times to strengthen the dough, then begin rolling it through progressively thinner settings, one step at a time, until you reach the second-to-last setting. The sheet should be almost translucent — hold it up to a light and you should just be able to see the shadow of your hand through it.

Lay the sheet flat on a lightly floured surface and cut it into long strips about 8cm wide. Spoon or pipe teaspoon-sized mounds of filling along one long edge of each strip, spacing them about 4cm apart. Brush the opposite long edge with beaten egg, then carefully fold the strip over the filling to enclose it, pressing gently with your fingers around each mound to push out any trapped air — trapped air is what causes fiori to burst open in the boiling water.

Cut between each mound with a sharp knife or pasta cutter to form small filled rectangles. Now for the fiori shape: take one rectangle and roll it up loosely from one short end, letting the filling nestle in the spiral, and pinch the base to seal. The top should look like an open rose or a curled pasta flower. Transfer to a lightly floured tray and repeat with the rest. If you’ve never shaped fiori before, the first two or three will look rough — by the fifth you’ll have the hang of it.

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a rolling boil — the water should taste like seawater, because this is the only chance you have to season the pasta itself. Drop the fiori in gently and cook for 3-4 minutes until they float to the surface and the pasta feels tender but still has a little bite. Lift them out with a slotted spoon or spider, letting the water drain back into the pot, and slide them straight into a pan with the finishing butter (30g) and a splash of the pasta water. Swirl gently for 30 seconds until the butter glazes each fiore and emulsifies with the water.

Bonus points

• Use real vin jaune: If you can find a bottle of actual vin jaune from the Jura (Château-Chalon is the classic appellation), the difference is real — it has an oxidative, nutty, curry-spice character that sherry approximates but never quite matches. It’s expensive, but worth it once if you can justify it.
• Poach the chicken in stock with aromatics: Instead of plain salted water, poach the thighs in chicken stock with a bay leaf, a few thyme sprigs, and a smashed garlic clove. Save the poaching liquid — it’s an extraordinary stock to use in the sauce.
• Fresh morels if in season: Swap the dried morels for fresh if you’re lucky enough to find them in spring. Sauté them in a little butter first, then fold through at the end. The difference in texture and aroma is transformative.
• Add Comté to the filling: Replace half the Parmesan with finely grated aged Comté. It’s the native cheese of the Jura and ties the filling to the vin jaune sauce in a way that’s almost cheating how well it works.
• Crisp chicken skin garnish: Render chicken skin flat between two parchment-lined sheet pans at 190°C for 15 minutes until shatter-crisp. Break into shards and stand one in the centre of each fiore for texture and show.
• Serve as a tasting course: Plate just one or two fiori per bowl as a small course between starters and mains — it’s intense and rich, and a single piece is often more elegant than four.
• Dust with toasted walnut powder: Toast walnuts, cool completely, and blitz to a fine powder. A tiny pinch dusted across the finished plate echoes the nutty oxidative notes of the vin jaune beautifully.

Serving

This is a dish that demands composed plating — the whole point is the contrast between the delicate pasta rose and the glossy pool of sauce it sits in. Warm your bowls first, because the vin jaune sauce will lose its shine the moment it hits a cold plate. Use wide, shallow bowls with a deep well so the sauce pools neatly without running to the rim.

Spoon a generous pool of the warm sauce into the centre of each bowl, making sure each portion gets its fair share of morels. Lift the buttered fiori out of their pan one at a time and place one (or two, for a proper main course) directly in the centre of the sauce, upright, so the rose shape is on show from above. Don’t pour more sauce over the pasta — you want the rose to stand proud, with the sauce around rather than on top of it.

Finish with a few fronds of chervil or micro herbs and the smallest pinch of flaky sea salt. Resist the temptation to add more garnish; this plate wants to look restrained.

For wine, the obvious answer is another glass of vin jaune, served at 14-16°C in a small, tulip-shaped glass — its oxidative, nutty character mirrors the sauce perfectly. If that’s not realistic, a Chardonnay from the Jura (a Domaine Tissot or Ganevat if you can find one) or a mineral, aged white Burgundy (a Meursault or Saint-Aubin) both work beautifully. A dry Amontillado sherry is the sideways move that surprises everyone at the table.