No. 1892

Chickens a la Marcel—Sauted

Poulets Sautes a la Marcel

Prepare a sufficient number of chickens the same as for sauteing (No. 1906); season with salt and pepper; pour some oil into a sautoir and when very hot add the pieces of chicken and saute them colorless; when nearly done put in one small chopped up shallot for every chicken, also a clove of garlic. Scoop out some potatoes olive-shaped, with a large oval vegetable spoon; cook them slowly in butter as well as some small artichoke bottoms after having them blanched, then finish cooking in butter; dress the chickens, garnish the artichoke bottoms with a consistent, mellow chestnut puree (No. 712) pushed through a pocket, and lay on top of this medium-sized channeled and glazed mushroom heads (No. 118); range these around the chicken and the potato olives between every one; trim the handles with frills (No. 10) and serve with a separate Colbert sauce (No. 451).

← No. 1891 Chickens a la Madeleine—Sauted Chicken No. 1893 Chickens a la Marengo—Sauted →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's plated dish written for a brigade: the chicken itself is simple, and nearly all the work is in the garnish. Read it as a parts list, since Ranhofer's cross-references carry half the instructions.

What the cross-references meanNo. 1906 is the sauteing preparation the chicken is cut down for; the cut itself is described there, not here. No. 712 is a chestnut puree, No. 451 a Colbert sauce, No. 118 the channeled and glazed mushroom heads, No. 10 the paper frills.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, wider than a saucepan and deeper than a skillet. Any wide sauté pan or 12-inch straight-sided skillet works; the point is that the pieces sit in one layer without steaming.
"Sauté them colorless"The hinge of the dish. This is a sauté à blanc — moderate heat, no browning, the flesh set and white. A brown crust turns it into a different preparation, and the pale chicken is what makes the chestnut and glazed mushrooms read on the plate.
The garlicOne clove, added late with the shallot. Ranhofer does not say whether it goes in whole or chopped, nor whether it is removed before serving.
Potato olivesScooped from peeled raw potato with a large oval spoon, then cooked slowly in butter until tender and barely gold — close to pommes cocotte, though scooped rather than knife-turned. Waxy potatoes hold the shape; a floury baking potato will crumble in the pan.
Artichoke bottomsFresh bottoms, trimmed and rubbed with lemon, blanched in acidulated water until a knife enters easily, chokes scraped out, then finished in butter. Frozen or good-quality tinned bottoms are an honest substitute and only need the butter stage.
"Pushed through a pocket"A piping bag. The chestnut purée must be stiff enough to hold a shape — cook it down and mount it with butter until it stands, or the mushroom cap will sink into it.
Colbert sauceIn standard nineteenth-century usage a reduced meat glaze with butter, lemon and chopped herbs, commonly tarragon and parsley, sometimes with madeira; Ranhofer's own No. 451 is not given on this page. Serve it in a sauceboat as directed; poured over, it stains the white chicken and defeats the plating.
Frills and yieldThe paper frills go on the exposed leg and wing bones and are decoration only. Ranhofer gives no quantities: the chickens are "a sufficient number" and the garnish is to be scaled to them, with the shallot counted one per bird.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organized the way a professional kitchen thinks: a base preparation, then dozens of named variations distinguished almost entirely by garnish. Sauteed chicken runs to a long series of entries here, and "a la Marcel" is one of them — the name attaches to the artichoke bottoms filled with chestnut puree and capped with a channeled mushroom, not to any technique. Titles of this kind in nineteenth-century grande cuisine are generally said to commemorate patrons, colleagues or occasions; no person has been identified behind this one. What the dish does show plainly is the scale of a great restaurant kitchen in the 1890s, where scooping potatoes into olives, channeling mushroom caps, and piping puree into each artichoke was routine work.