No. 1906

Sauted Chickens with half—Glaze

Poulets Sautes Demi-Glace

Sauted chickens are cooked various ways, either with a plain sauce or garnishing.

How to Saute.—Cut up two chickens each of two pound weight, having them well cleaned and singed, into seven pieces, viz: two legs, the breastbone, whole breasts, and the backbone, split in two, suppressing the pinions and giblets. Break the second joint bone of the legs' and remove it. Heat some butter and oil in a sautoir, range the pieces of chicken in this, and cook over a good but not too fierce fire, turning them over when of a nice color and well browned; remove the saucepan from off the fire and place it in the oven to finish cooking the chickens, taking out the pieces as fast as they are done, and when the legs are sufficiently cooked, drain the fat from the sautoir and return to it the pieces previously removed, then pour over a pint of half-glaze sauce (No. 413), boil up for a minute, turning the pieces over so that they are thoroughly covered with the sauce on all sides. Dress these pieces of chicken on a dish, cover and keep hot. Pour a gill of Madeira or white wine, or else half of each, into the sautoir, reduce to half, add another half pint of half-glaze sauce and some mushroom and truffle parings; boil up for a minute while stirring incessantly with a spoon, strain the sauce through a fine strainer pour it over the chickens and serve.

← No. 1905 Chickens, Vienna Style—Sauted Chicken No. 1907 Chickens with Fine Herbs, Tomato Garnishing— →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade, a stockpot of demi-glace already made, and a cook who knows that white meat and dark meat are done at different moments. Everything else in the method still holds.

The hinge: stagger the removalThe instruction to "take out the pieces as fast as they are done" is the whole technique. Breast pieces finish several minutes before the legs, and leaving them in until the thighs are done will dry them out. Pull the breasts once they reach a safe 165F, hold them warm, and return them only for the final minute in the sauce; the legs need longer and tolerate it.
SautoirA straight-sided saut pan, wide enough to hold all the pieces in one layer without crowding. Two 2 lb chickens cut into seven each is fourteen pieces; use two pans rather than stacking them in one.
Oven heatThe recipe names no temperature, only "the oven." A moderate oven, in modern terms roughly 350-375F, will finish the pieces without scorching the fond built up in the pan.
Half-glazeDemi-glace: espagnole sauce reduced with brown stock until it coats a spoon. Ranhofer's No. 413 is a separate, more involved undertaking. A pint of a good reduced brown chicken or veal stock, thickened lightly, will stand in; commercial demi-glace concentrate works but is usually far saltier, so hold back on seasoning until the end.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. "Half of each" means a quarter cup Madeira and a quarter cup white wine. Use a dry or Sercial-style Madeira, not a sweetened cooking Madeira.
Pinions and the second joint bonePinions are the wing tips and mid-joints, discarded here (keep them for stock). Breaking and removing the thigh bone is optional for home cooking but it does make the legs cook faster and more evenly, closer to the timing of the breast.
Mushroom and truffle paringsThese were the trimmings from garnishes prepared elsewhere in the kitchen. A handful of chopped mushroom stems gives most of the effect; truffle is optional and a few drops of truffle oil is not a substitute for it in a sauce that gets strained.
YieldTwo small chickens, fourteen pieces, sauced: six servings at a modern table, four generous ones.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire set down in print, cross-referenced like an engineering manual hence the numbered sauce, No. 413, that this recipe simply points to. Poulet saut is the plainest of the French chicken preparations: brown in fat, finish in the oven, deglaze, sauce, serve, with the variation living entirely in what goes into the pan at the end. Ranhofer gives dozens of them in sequence Vienna style, with fine herbs, with tomato and this one, demi-glace, is the base case against which the others are variations. The recipe assumes a kitchen where a pint of finished demi-glace can be ladled out at will, which is the single biggest gap between a nineteenth-century restaurant line and a domestic stove; sauce making was a full-time station, and the mushroom and truffle parings called for at the end were the free byproduct of other cooks' prep work rather than something bought for the purpose.