No. 1904

Chickens, Parisian Style—Sauted

Poulets Sautes a la Parisienne

Peel a few medium-sized truffles, lay them in a saucepan with a little salt and Madeira wine; cook them slightly; cook also as many mushrooms with a piece of butter and the juice of a lemon. Take two singed, drawn chickens, cut off the pinions and drumsticks, detach the thighs, and divide the breasts into three pieces, the two fillets and the upper breast part; cut the carcasses in two; crack the thigh bones in order to remove them, then place the thighs in a buttered flat saucepan; add the pinions, necks, and carcasses, season and cook on a moderate fire stirring them about at times; when partly done, add the fillets and upper breast parts, a bunch of parsley garnished with aromatic herbs, and a clove of garlic. After all the meats are well sized lift them out with a skimmer, and transfer to another saucepan, adding the truffles. Drain off the fat from the contents of the first saucepan, put in the truffle parings, and moisten with half a glassful of Madeira; boil up once or twice, then mix in double as much brown sauce (No. 414) and the truffle stock; let cook on a brisk fire for ten minutes: skim off the fat, and strain this sauce over the chickens; heat without allowing the liquid to boil. Fasten a small fried bread pyramid in the center of a dish, around it dress first the carcasses and pinions, then the thighs and breasts, placing the upper breast pieces on top; surround the chickens with the truffles and mushrooms, place a few cocks'-combs here and there, and free the sauce once more of its fat; pour it over the chicken and serve.

← No. 1903 Chickens, Hunter's Style—Sauted Chicken No. 1905 Chickens, Vienna Style—Sauted →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's sauté is a classic fricassée-brune worked in stages so that dark meat and white meat each cook the right length of time. The method survives intact; only the truffles, the cocks' combs and the mother sauce need translating.

The hinge: stagger the meatThighs, wings, necks and carcass go into the pan first and cook until partly done; the breast fillets join only near the end. Put everything in at once and the breast will be dry before the legs are cooked through — around 165F at the thigh joint is the target.
"Flat saucepan" and "well sized"A flat saucepan is a wide sauté pan or straight-sided skillet. "Sized" appears to render the French saisir, to seize — surfaces set and lightly coloured, not deeply browned as for a roast.
Brown sauce No. 414Ranhofer's brown sauce is an espagnole: a brown roux moistened with stock and aromatics, simmered and strained. A good reduced brown chicken or veal stock, lightly thickened, does the same work here. The recipe asks for double the Madeira, so about 1/2 to 2/3 cup by the conversion below.
Madeira and the glassful"Half a glassful" is not defined in the book; period measures put a wineglassful at roughly 1/4 cup, so read this as somewhere between 2 tablespoons and 1/3 cup and adjust to taste. Use a dry or medium-dry Madeira (Sercial or Verdelho); a sweet Bual will push the sauce sugary.
Truffles and their stockFresh black truffles are peeled here, the peelings go into the sauce and the Madeira poaching liquid becomes the "truffle stock." Preserved truffles in jars work, and their packing juice replaces the stock; truffle oil does not, since it contributes no body to the sauce.
Cocks' combsA standard 19th-century garnish, blanched, skinned and simmered until gelatinous. They are effectively unobtainable now and can simply be left out — nothing in the dish depends on them.
Do not let the sauce boilOnce the strained sauce is over the chicken it is only reheated, as the recipe directs. Boiling at this point tightens the breast meat.
The bread pyramidA wedge of crustless bread trimmed to a cone and fried, then fastened to the platter. It is a serving support for the breast pieces, not a component to be eaten.
YieldThe recipe gives no bird size. Two chickens of average size will serve six to eight in the coursed style this book assumes; four as a main dish on its own.

A Little History

This is No. 1904 from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he compiled after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. " title" aside, "à la parisienne" was never a fixed formula in the 19th-century kitchen; attached to a sauté it generally signalled the expensive register — truffles, mushrooms, cocks' combs, a Madeira-lifted espagnole — as against the tomato-and-white-wine of chasseur, which is the recipe immediately preceding it. The elaborate final assembly, with a fried bread cone holding the breast meat above a ring of carcass, wings and thighs, is usually associated with the service à la russe of the period, though quite how it was handled at table — shown on the platter and then carved, or carved away at a sideboard — is not settled. It also shows the frugality underneath the luxury: necks, pinions and cracked carcasses all go into the pan to build the sauce, and the truffle peelings are simmered rather than discarded.