No. 1862

Chicken Fricassee a la Bouchard

Fricassee de Poulet a la Bouchard

Singe and cut up the chickens as for a plain fricassee (No. 1861), fry them without letting attain a color in some butter, and add a heaping tablespoonful of flour, mix well and pour in a pint of chablis wine, some broth (No. 194a), and a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123); cook very slowly and when done, take out the pieces of chicken; thicken the sauce with four egg-yolks and a little butter, pass the sauce through a tammy and just when ready to serve add two chopped blanched shallots; some tarragon leaves and chopped parsley. Pour this over the chicken, garnishing around with Villeroi oysters (No. 698), and mushroom heads fried in butter, then tossed in meat-glaze (No. 402), butter and lemon juice; serve immediately.

← No. 1861 Chicken Fricassee Chicken No. 1863 Chicken Fricassee a la Chevaliere →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot already on the fire, so this reads as shorthand. The cooking is straightforward; the finish is where it can be lost.

The hinge: the egg-yolk liaisonOnce the four yolks go in, the sauce must never simmer. Temper them with a ladle of the hot cooking liquid, return the pan to low heat, and stir until it coats a spoon at around 175F. A single boil curdles it and no straining will bring it back.
"Cook very slowly"A bare simmer with the pan barely trembling, about 30 minutes for legs and thighs and 20 for breast pieces. Pull the breast out early and hold it warm rather than letting it toughen while the dark meat finishes.
TammyA tammy was a tightly woven worsted cloth through which two cooks wrung the sauce. A fine chinois or a conical strainer lined with dampened muslin does the same job, and a stick blender before straining gives the same gloss with less effort.
SingeingAn instruction for birds sold with pinfeathers still in. A modern chicken needs no flame; skip it entirely.
Chablis and brothA pint is 2 cups of dry, unoaked white; a lean Chablis or Aligote is closer to the original than anything buttery. The broth (his No. 194a) is one of Ranhofer's plain white stocks; the recipe says only "some," so add enough alongside the wine to just cover the pieces.
Garnished bunch of parsleyRanhofer's No. 123 is a bouquet: parsley tied up with aromatics such as thyme and bay. Remove it before thickening.
Villeroi oystersHis No. 698 is a project in itself u2014 poached oysters coated in a stiff, cooled allemande sauce, then breaded and deep-fried. If you are not making them, the dish stands well with the fried mushroom caps alone, glossed in a spoonful of reduced stock with butter and lemon.
Meat-glazeNo. 402 is brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A tablespoon of commercial demi-glace concentrate, or your own stock reduced by nine-tenths, serves the same purpose.
YieldThe recipe is written for two chickens. At a modern 3 to 3 1/2 lb each, with the garnishes, that would serve roughly six to eight. Halve everything for a single bird.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer put this in The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of what he cooked during his decades at Delmonico's in New York, and it shows exactly how a French kitchen of that period built variety: one mother preparation, the plain fricassee de poulet of No. 1861, then a long file of named versions distinguished chiefly by garnish. A fricassee proper is white meat cooked in fat without browning, then stewed in its own sauce and finished with an egg-and-cream or egg-and-butter liaison — the technique is old enough that the word appears in French cookery writing well before the eighteenth century. Who "a la Bouchard" refers to is not recorded in the book. The Villeroi oysters around the edge of the dish would have been easy to come by in New York, where oysters were cheap and abundant.