Home › Poultry And Game › Blanquette of Chicken
Blanquette of Chicken
2 cups cold cooked chicken, cut in strips 1 cup White Sauce II 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley Yolks 2 eggs 2 tablespoons milk Add chicken to sauce; when well heated, add yolks of eggs slightly beaten, diluted with milk. Cook two minutes, then add parsley.
A leftovers dish from the era when a cooked bird was expected to reappear at a second meal. It comes together in about ten minutes, and nearly all of it hinges on how you handle the egg yolks.
- Do not let it boil after the yolks go inThe yolks and milk are a liaison, not a thickener you can drive hard. Once they are stirred in, hold the pan over low heat and stir constantly; a boil will curdle the sauce into grains of scrambled egg. Two minutes of gentle cooking is enough to thicken and gloss it.
- White Sauce IIIn Farmer's scheme this is the thicker of the two basic white sauces, usually given as about 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour and 1 cup milk, with salt and pepper. If your copy's numbering or proportions differ, follow the proportions rather than the numeral.
- SeasoningThe recipe assumes the sauce arrives already seasoned. Taste before serving and correct with salt, white pepper, a scrape of nutmeg and a little lemon juice, which is traditional in a blanquette and cuts the richness of the yolks.
- The chickenCold cooked chicken means poached or roasted meat, cut in strips rather than diced, so it holds its shape in the sauce. Warm it through in the sauce over moderate heat before the liaison goes in; adding cold meat afterward will drop the temperature and stall the thickening.
- YieldTwo cups of meat in one cup of sauce serves two generously or three modestly as a main dish. Dishes of this kind were commonly served over toast points, in puff-paste patty shells, or on boiled rice.
- Pan choiceUse a heavy saucepan or a double boiler. Thin aluminium over direct flame gives hot spots that will set the yolks before the sauce has thickened evenly.
- Holding and reheatingAn egg-thickened sauce is likely to separate if held hot or reheated. Best made immediately before serving.
Blanquette comes from the French blanc, white, and names a class of stews in which the meat is not browned and the sauce is finished with a liaison of egg yolk and cream — blanquette de veau is the best-known example. Farmer's version is that technique put to household work: not a stew built from raw meat, but a way of dressing up yesterday's roast chicken. The Boston Cooking-School books are full of these "made-over" dishes, and they reflect a kitchen economy in which a whole bird fed a family across several meals. The egg-and-milk finish, applied off a hard boil, was also familiar chafing-dish practice around 1900, when supper dishes were sometimes cooked at the table over a spirit lamp.