No. 1897

Chickens a la Parmentier—Sauted

Poulets Sautes a la Parmentier

Draw and singe three two pounds chickens, clean them well, suppressing all the pin feathers, cut them up in to five pieces, namely: two legs, two wings and a breastbone piece; saute in butter and when three-quarters done add potatoes cut cylindrical shape an inch in diameter then sliced three-eights of an inch thick, or else cut in five-eights squares; cook them partially in a frying pan with clarified butter. Finish cooking the chicken and potatoes together in the oven, being careful to remove the breasts as soon as they are done. Dress the chickens on a dish with the potatoes around, detach the glaze from the sautoir with a little clear gravy (No. 404), Madeira and half-glaze sauce (No. 413), reduce the liquid for two minutes, pass through a tammy and pour it over the chickens.

← No. 1896 Chickens a la Nantaise—Sauted Chicken No. 1898 Chickens a la Portugaise—Sauted →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional brigade with stock, demi-glace and clarified butter already on hand, and he leaves the oven temperature to your judgment. The technique itself is straightforward sauté work.

The hinge: pull the breast earlyBreast pieces finish well before the legs, and Ranhofer says so explicitly. Take them out once the breast reaches 165F internal and let the dark meat continue; leaving all five pieces in until the legs are done gives you dry breast.
The birdsThree 2-lb chickens are small by today's standards. Two 3 to 3.5-lb chickens cut into five pieces each give roughly the same quantity of meat and serve six. Drawing and singeing is done for you at the butcher; just check for pin feathers.
Oven heatNo temperature is given because the recipe predates thermostats. Around 400F finishes the pieces and colors the potatoes without stalling the sauté.
SautoirA sautoir is a straight-sided saute pan. Any wide, heavy, oven-safe skillet works, provided the pieces sit in one layer with room around them.
The potatoesTwo cuts are offered: coins about 1 inch across and three-eighths thick, or five-eighths-inch dice. A waxy or all-purpose potato holds the shape; russets crumble at the edges.
Clarified butterUsed for the potatoes because whole butter's milk solids scorch at the heat needed to brown them. Ghee is the ready-made equivalent.
The cross-referenced saucesNo. 404 is Ranhofer's clear gravy, essentially a light brown stock; No. 413 is half-glaze, or demi-glace. Deglaze with a splash of Madeira, add good chicken or veal stock plus a spoonful of demi-glace, and reduce briefly.
TammyA tammy was a worsted cloth through which sauce was wrung; a fine-mesh conical strainer does the same job in a fraction of the time.

A Little History

Anything labeled a la Parmentier in a nineteenth-century French kitchen means potatoes, the name honoring Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, the army pharmacist who campaigned through the 1770s and 1780s to get the potato accepted as human food in France rather than livestock fodder. By the time Charles Ranhofer compiled The Epicurean in 1894 from his decades at Delmonico's in New York, the garnish had hardened into a convention: cut potato, browned in butter, served around the meat. The recipe is one of a long run of sauted chicken variations in the book, each distinguished mainly by its garnish and its finishing sauce, which is how a large restaurant kitchen generated a deep menu from a single prepared bird and a few mother sauces held at the ready.