The NoMad Chicken for Two (Daniel Humm's Famous Foie Gras and Truffle Roast Chicken, Made at Home)

The NoMad was Daniel Humm's restaurant at the NoMad Hotel — the boutique hotel in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan (North of Madison Square Park, between 25th and 28th Streets on Broadway) — open from 2012 until the hotel's permanent closure in 2021. Humm, who also ran the three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park with business partner Will Guidara, described The NoMad as a more relaxed, European brasserie to EMP's precision-driven tasting menu. The chicken for two became the restaurant's signature almost from opening month. New York Magazine's Adam Platt, Frank Bruni in the Times, and Gourmet's writers all singled it out. The reasons were specific: the technique of stuffing foie gras, black truffle, and brioche under the skin created a self-basting mechanism — the fat from the foie melted during roasting, saturated the breast meat and skin from below, and fused with the butter baste from above to produce a skin depth and a breast tenderness that a plain roast chicken simply cannot achieve. The $84 price for two people for an entire roasted chicken, carved tableside, also made it a spectacle. The NoMad Cookbook, published in 2015, includes the full recipe.

Foie gras — the fattened liver of a duck or goose — serves a mechanical function here beyond flavor: its fat content (approximately 44 percent fat by weight, compared to roughly 4 percent for a chicken breast) means that when it is packed under the skin and the chicken goes into a 450°F oven, the foie gras melts from within and continuously bastes the breast meat and the underside of the skin with pure rich fat. A plain chicken breast loses moisture to the oven; this one is being continuously re-lubricated from the inside. The flavor contribution is secondary to this basting effect — the truffle and brioche carry most of the aromatic character. The best home substitute is high-quality duck liver pâté (sold in glass jars or canned, at specialty food stores like D'Artagnan, Whole Foods, or Wegmans). Duck liver pâté has a fat content roughly 50 to 60 percent as rich as foie gras and an iron-forward, livery flavor that is noticeably different from foie gras's silkier, sweeter character — but it still provides meaningful fat and flavor under the skin. Chicken liver pâté works as a second-level substitute (fat content lower still, flavor more aggressive). One sourcing note for California cooks: California bans both the production and the in-state retail sale of foie gras (Health and Safety Code sections 25980–25984, upheld by the Ninth Circuit in 2017), but subsequent litigation established that California residents may legally order it from out-of-state producers for personal use — so you can have it shipped to you by mail-order companies like D'Artagnan or Hudson Valley Foie Gras even though a California store or restaurant cannot sell it to you. Elsewhere in the US it is sold normally at specialty grocers.

When you push foie gras or pâté under the skin, it is a soft, spreadable paste — it will run out from under the skin the moment the bird hits a hot oven, before the skin has time to set around it. The overnight refrigeration (or at least 8 hours) achieves two things: first, the cold firms the foie gras mixture back to a nearly solid consistency, so it doesn't liquify and escape before the skin tightens around it; second, the extended dry-air exposure in the refrigerator (uncovered, on a rack) draws moisture from the skin's surface, which is exactly what produces shattering, lacquer-like crackling rather than steam-softened skin. At The NoMad, Humm's prep team stuffed and trussed dozens of birds each afternoon and let them chill several hours before service. The chilling step is as important as the stuffing itself — skip it and you lose both the structural integrity of the stuffing and the skin quality.

Fresh black truffle (Tuber melanosporum, the Périgord black truffle) is the genuine article — earthy, intensely aromatic, with a volatile compound profile (dimethyl sulfide, bis-methylthiomethane) that dissipates rapidly with heat. For this recipe's stuffing, which is pressed under the skin and roasts for over an hour, much of the fresh truffle's volatile aroma will escape during cooking regardless. The value of fresh truffle in the stuffing comes from the texture (visible dark flecks in the cross-section) and the residual flavor after volatile loss. Black truffle paste — cooked truffle purée in olive oil or sunflower oil, sold in tubes or small jars by companies like Sabatino Tartufi or Urbani — has already had its volatiles reduced in processing, making it better suited to high-heat applications than fresh truffle, and costs roughly 10 to 20 percent as much per serving. For this home version, black truffle paste in the stuffing and in the pomme purée performs near-equivalently to fresh truffle at a fraction of the cost. If you want to use fresh truffle, add it to the cold stuffing mixture and keep the mixing and roasting time as short as possible; the truffle aroma in the purée should be added off the heat just before serving.

At The NoMad, the whole roasted chicken was brought intact to the table on a board for the guests to see — this tableside presentation was part of the ritual, and part of why the dish was $84. A server then carried it back to the kitchen, where it was carved into a specific plate arrangement: the breast was sliced off the carcass and fanned across a pool of truffled pomme purée, with the foie gras layer visible as a dark ribbon in each cross-section slice; the legs and thighs were removed and used for a separate fricassee with morel mushrooms and cream, served alongside the breast slices. The two elements arrived back at the table on a single or divided plate. At home, replicate this structure: (1) bring the whole bird to the table for a moment if you have guests; (2) remove the legs and thighs and set aside for the fricassee; (3) run a knife along each side of the breastbone, then slice each breast on the diagonal so the foie gras layer is visible in each piece; (4) plate the breast slices on the purée, the fricassee alongside. Do not try to carve tableside unless you are very confident with a boning knife — the chicken's skin is the most delicate part and tears easily.

Morel mushrooms (Morchella species) are a wildly foraged spring and early-summer mushroom with a hollow, honeycomb-textured cap and a deep, earthy, almost smoky flavor. Dried morels, available year-round at specialty grocers and online, require a 20 to 30 minute soak in hot water before cooking; save the soaking liquid and add a tablespoon to the fricassee for extra depth (strain through a coffee filter first to remove grit). Fresh morels are available in spring at farmers markets and high-end grocery stores. For this recipe, the fricassee's base of sherry, cream, and shallots will taste excellent with any strongly flavored mushroom: dried porcini (second-best substitute, very similar earthy depth), fresh king trumpet mushrooms, or even a combination of cremini and shiitake. Button mushrooms are too mild and watery; don't bother. If using dried porcini, soak them the same way as dried morels and use the soaking liquid identically.

Pomme purée is the French kitchen's version of mashed potatoes, but the technique and fat ratio are categorically different. Regular mashed potatoes: boil, drain, mash, add butter and milk. Pomme purée: pass boiled potatoes through a potato ricer or drum sieve (a tamis) into a warm pan — never mash them, which develops starch and makes them gluey — then beat in cold cubed butter, adding it gradually until the purée absorbs it all, then thin to the right consistency with warm cream. The Robuchon version uses roughly 1 part butter to 2 parts potato; this recipe uses a somewhat lighter ratio (5 tablespoons for 1 lb of potato) to keep it complementary rather than overwhelming. The result is silkier, glossier, and richer than any mashed potato made by mashing or in a stand mixer. The two rules that matter: rice the potato (don't mash or blend), and add cold butter to warm potato (the temperature gradient is what creates the emulsion rather than a greasy pool). For the truffle version, stir in truffle paste at the very end, off the heat, so the volatile aroma doesn't cook off.

The NoMad's sommelier team famously paired the chicken for two with white Burgundy — specifically premier or grand cru Chardonnay from Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet, or Meursault. The reasoning: the dish's fat profile is enormous (foie gras, butter baste, truffled butter purée, cream fricassee), and a lean wine collapses against it; white Burgundy's combination of body, texture, and high acidity cuts through the fat while the wine's stone-fruit and toasted-cream notes mirror the dish's own butter-and-truffle character. For home cooks at a more accessible price: California Chardonnay in the Burgundian style (Lioco, Ceritas, Peay) or a white Rhône (white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Roussanne-dominant blends) both work well. If you prefer red: a pinot noir from Chambolle-Musigny or from the Sonoma Coast — light enough to not fight the truffle, earthy enough to echo it. Avoid anything tannic or full-bodied; the dish doesn't need more weight.

You can use any high-quality whole chicken, but the bird choice matters for one specific reason in this recipe: the skin must not tear when you separate it from the breast. Standard commodity chicken (Tyson, Perdue) has thinner, more fragile skin from being raised faster and processed at scale; it tears more easily during the stuffing process. Amish chicken (available from D'Artagnan, Whole Foods, farmers markets) and air-chilled chickens (Bell & Evans is the most widely available) have thicker, more elastic skin from slower growth and better feed. Air-chilling (versus water-chilling) also produces drier skin, which crisps better. A 3.5 to 4 lb bird (without giblets) is the right size for two people with sides; larger birds require adjusting roast time. If you can only find a standard grocery chicken, work very slowly when separating the skin, use your palm rather than fingers to push through (less likely to tear), and chill the stuffing mixture until very firm before stuffing.