Poussin saute a l’estragon, compote de pommes

Cuts:0; Burns:0
After the carnage of Monday, we had a relatively simple dish to make on Tuesday to bring back the confidence which was butchering a poussin (a small chicken but not a baby chicken I was assured by chef), making a tarragon cream sauce, an apple sauce/compote and most importantly the first opportunity to do a cheffy smear on the plate! Everybody needs practice in butchery however we were spatchcocking the poussin rather than jointing it this time which is bascially taking out the back bone and we also cut it down the breast bone to get 2 separate sides of chicken to cook but still had to French trim the winglet. One of mine fell off for some reason – good job I had 2 so I could present the complete one. I will definitely use this recipe if I need to make apple sauce – very tangy and somehow savoury. I was third to plate up and got good marks for everything so pretty pleased. We also had to cook some new potatoes but in the ususal Cordon Bleu way, they weren’t just any new potatoes, we had to remove the skins and eyes after they had been boiled (another job for the lowest of the low in the kitchen) and cook them off in guess what? More butter of course. I should probably track my weight as I do the course with all this butter etc. So far I have resisted all the pastries and muffins etc. in the Cordon Bleu cafe so not doing too bad.
Top Tip: to get good acidity/tangyness in the apple compote, put the granny smith apple peelings in some muslin and add to the pan as you sweat down the apples and add some lemon juice, salt and pepper