No. 1832

Chicken Cocotte

Poulet en Cocotte

Cut up one small pound and a quarter to pound and a half chicken; season with pepper, only divide it into four parts, the two legs and the breast part cut in two; put the pieces in the bottom of a cocotte (small earthen saucepan, Fig. 354) with a little piece of butter the size of a nut, placing the legs underneath and the breasts on top, add a small bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf and over lay two ounces of unsmoked bacon cut in five-eighths inch squares blanched, then fried in butter, also a dozen and half pieces of potato-shaped like cloves of garlic and as many small raw onions fried to a light color in butter; lay here and there half an ounce more butter, put on the lid and push into a moderate oven for half an hour. The cocotte should stand directly on the bottom of the oven; turn the ingredients over carefully ranging the meat on top of the vegetables; let cook for another ten to fifteen minutes, then add a little clear gravy (No. 404) and chopped parsley; toss and serve in the cocotte itself.

← No. 1831 Chicken with Tarragon Gravy or Sauce—Broiled Chicken No. 1833 Epigrammes of Chicken a la Volnay →

For the Modern Kitchen

A whole small bird braised in its own butter with bacon, onions and potatoes in a lidded pot — the ancestor of every one-pot chicken since. Ranhofer's proportions assume a bird about a third the size of what a supermarket sells today.

The cocotteIn 1894 this meant a small lidded earthenware casserole just large enough for one bird, taken to the table. A 2–3 quart enameled cast-iron pot or a lidded stoneware braiser does the same job; what matters is a tight lid and a vessel barely larger than the chicken, so the butter and juices stay around the meat rather than spreading and scorching.
The birdA pound and a quarter to a pound and a half is a poussin or spring chicken, not a modern roaster. If you use a 3½–4 lb chicken, double the butter, bacon, potatoes and onions, and expect roughly 55–70 minutes total rather than 45. Cook to 165°F at the thigh joint.
Moderate ovenRoughly 350°F; a period 'moderate' oven covers about 350–375°F. The instruction to set the cocotte directly on the oven floor was a way of getting bottom heat from a range oven; in a modern oven put it on the lowest rack, or on a preheated baking steel if you want the same effect.
Unsmoked baconHe means green (unsmoked) streaky bacon or salt pork — pancetta is the closest easy substitute. The blanching step draws out excess salt from old-style heavily cured pork; with modern pancetta or a mild slab bacon you can skip it, but do render the dice in butter until lightly colored before they go in.
Potatoes shaped like cloves of garlicSmall pointed ovals, roughly an inch long, turned from a peeled potato with a paring knife. Eighteen of them is about ¾ lb of potato before trimming. A waxy variety holds the shape; the point of the frying is color, not doneness.
Small raw onionsPearl or small boiling onions, peeled and colored in butter. Frozen peeled pearl onions work if thawed and dried first, but they will not brown as well.
Clear gravy, No. 404Ranhofer's cross-reference is to a light, unthickened gravy rather than a bound sauce. A few tablespoons of well-reduced chicken or veal stock added at the end, off the boil, gives the same result — the dish should be glossy and barely moist, not saucy.
Turning the ingredientsThe mid-cook turn is not optional. It moves the vegetables into the rendered fat at the bottom and puts the meat on top to color; skip it and the potatoes steam pale while the breast dries out.
YieldAs written, two servings. Scaled to a full-sized chicken, four.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its French entries like this one were meant to be read as much by professional cooks as by hostesses. Poulet en cocotte is French home cooking dressed for a restaurant: the cocotte is traditionally described as the small earthenware pot a farmhouse cook set in the embers, and the dish traveled into the classic repertoire more or less intact, appearing later in Escoffier and in French household manuals as poulet en cocotte bonne femme. The signature detail is that the pot is both the cooking vessel and the serving dish — Ranhofer is explicit that it goes to the table. The potatoes cut to the shape of garlic cloves are the giveaway that this is restaurant work: fussy knife labor for a garnish that would be eaten in a few bites.