Clean and season 2 spring chickens. Put them in a saucepan with 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; cover and let simmer until brown. Add ½ can of mushrooms, chopped parsley, and 1 glass of wine; let all cook until done. Put on a platter and pour over 1 cup of hot cream. Serve, garnished with croutons.
A brief, confident sauté-braise of the kind French cookery books of the era assumed everyone already knew. The gaps are in quantities and in the word "brown."
- The hinge: brown before you coverA covered pan traps steam and the birds will poach pale rather than colour. Brown the pieces uncovered in the butter first, then cover and let them simmer through.
- Spring chickensThese were young birds of roughly 1½ to 2½ lb each, closer to today's poussin or Cornish hen than to a roaster. Two Cornish hens, or one 3½–4 lb chicken cut into eight pieces, gives the same amount of meat.
- "1 glass of wine"In American books of this period a wineglass is about ¼ cup and a tumbler about a cup; a "glass" here is best read as ½ cup. Use a dry white.
- Half a can of mushroomsCanned mushrooms of the period came in small tins, commonly in the 4–8 oz range, so half a can is likely something on the order of ½ cup drained. About 6–8 oz of fresh mushrooms, sliced and sautéed separately until their water has gone, is better and closer to the intent.
- Cooking timeSmall birds are done in 30–40 minutes of gentle simmering; a cut-up larger chicken takes about the same. Thigh meat should read 165°F.
- The creamHeat the cream but do not let it boil hard in the pan, and never pour it in cold — it will thin the pan juices and can break. Warming it and pouring over the platter, as written, keeps the sauce loose and glossy; if you prefer it thicker, reduce the pan liquid first.
- CroutonsNot the salad kind. These are triangles or fingers of white bread fried in butter until crisp, tucked round the edge of the platter to soak up the cream.
- YieldServes four generously, with rice, buttered noodles or plain boiled potatoes.
The recipe as printed here is headed simply "French," and the word "Parisian" appears nowhere in it. Underneath any such label this is a straightforward poulet à la crème, a sauté of young birds with wine and cream added at the end — a technique that depends on the fowl being small and tender, since a mature bird would need far longer moist cooking. That the mushrooms come out of a can suggests tinned mushrooms were an unremarkable pantry item for the book's readers, and a cook writing a dish a day for a year had no reason to insist on fresh ones.