No. 1870

Chicken, Medicis—Fried

Poulet Friteau Medicis

Lard two two and a half pound very white chickens with truffles after they have been singed, drawn and well cleaned. Braise them in a saucepan lined with bardes of fat pork and moistened with mirepoix stock (No. 419) and two gills of white wine, when done, lay them in an earthenware vessel and cover with their own strained broth, leaving them thus until thoroughly cold, then cut them up into ten medium-sized pieces each, making two of each fillet, two of each leg and two of the breastbone. Place these in a vessel with two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, pepper and salt, leave them in this pickle for two hours. Heat about three pounds of good fresh lard, when very hot, dip each separate piece of chicken in frying batter (No. 137), and then in the fat to fry to a fine color, having them thoroughly warmed throughout. Drain, salt over and dress in a pyramidical form on a dish covered with a folded napkin, garnishing the top with a bunch of fried parsley. Serve a cream bechamel sauce with chopped truffles (No. 411), separately.

← No. 1869 Chicken, Marinade Sauce—Fried Chicken No. 1871 Grenades of Chicken a la Ritti →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a two-day dish: braise, chill in the braising liquid, then batter and deep-fry. The chilling is not optional padding, and most of the notes below hang on it.

The hinge: chill the birds solidThe pieces are fried after braising, and only a thoroughly cold, gelatin-set bird cuts into clean joints that hold their shape in hot fat. Warm or barely-cooled chicken shreds when jointed and the batter slides off. Refrigerate overnight in the strained broth.
Gills and quantitiesA gill is half a cup, so two gills of white wine is one cup. The three pounds of lard is simply enough fat for a deep pot; any neutral frying fat at a depth of three inches does the same work.
Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'very hot'; for this kind of frying that is usually taken to mean somewhere in the region of 350-360F. The chicken is already cooked, so the fat only needs to set the batter and heat the pieces through -- a few minutes a batch. Much hotter and the batter colors before the interior warms.
Bardes and lardingBardes of fat pork are thin sheets of unsalted back fat used to line the pan; sliced fatback or unsmoked salt pork blanched to remove salt will substitute. Larding with truffles means studding the birds with slivers of truffle inserted with the point of a knife or a larding needle; Ranhofer does not say whether they go under the skin or into the flesh.
The cross-referencesNo. 419 is Ranhofer's mirepoix stock, No. 137 his frying batter, and No. 411 the cream bechamel. Any well-made flour batter and a bechamel finished with cream and chopped truffle will serve; the recipe is not built around a peculiarity in either.
The two-hour "pickle"Two tablespoons of vinegar with pepper and salt on twenty cooked pieces is a seasoning marinade, not a preservation step. Keep it refrigerated and pat the pieces dry before battering, or the batter will not adhere.
Braising timeThe original gives none. Two 2.5 lb birds in a tightly covered pan take 45 to 60 minutes at a bare simmer, or in a 325F oven, until the thigh joint moves freely.
Fried parsleyUse flat or curly parsley that has been washed and dried completely -- wet sprigs will make the fat erupt. Ten to fifteen seconds in the fat is enough; it should stay green.
YieldTwo chickens cut into ten pieces each gives twenty pieces, comfortably six to eight servings as a course. The napkin-lined dish is a period service convention that absorbs drips; a rack and a warm platter do the job now.

A Little History

Friteau is old French kitchen vocabulary for meat that has been cooked first, then cut up, marinated briefly and fried in batter -- the same logic as an Italian fritto misto and a thrifty way to give braised poultry a second, showier life. The name Médicis belongs to the nineteenth-century garnish repertoire, where dishes were tagged with dynasties and celebrities more or less at the chef's pleasure; the label trades on the persistent tradition that Catherine de' Medici's Florentine cooks refined French cookery, a claim food historians now treat with considerable skepticism. Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and the recipe shows the house style plainly: truffles inserted under the skin, a pork-fat-lined braising pan, and the finished pieces stacked in a pyramid on a folded napkin with fried parsley on top -- food built to be carried into a dining room and looked at before it was eaten.