No. 1912

Chickens, English Style—Boiled

Poulets Bouillis a l'Anglaise

Prepare and truss some young two-pound chickens as for an entree (No. 178), boil them in stock (No. 194a) and drain when done; dress and cover with a well buttered veloute sauce (No. 415), adding to it chopped parsley and lemon juice.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional brigade, so nearly every step here is a cross-reference to somewhere else in The Epicurean. Unpacked, it is a small poached chicken with a buttered velouté sharpened with lemon and parsley.

Never actually boil itThe hinge of the dish. A rolling boil shreds the breast and clouds the stock; hold the liquid at a bare shiver, around 180F, so the surface barely moves. A trussed two-pound bird is done in roughly 30 to 40 minutes, when the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F.
A two-pound chickenThat is a bird well under modern supermarket weight — closest today is a Cornish game hen or a poussin, usually sold at 1 1/4 to 2 lb. Two of them serve four as a course. A single 3 1/2 to 4 lb chicken will work but needs closer to an hour and should be carved rather than served whole.
"Truss as for an entree"The recipe sends you to Ranhofer's No. 178 for the trussing method. Standard trussing of the period brings the legs up tight against the breast and pins the wings back, so the bird holds a compact shape in the pot and does not sprawl on the platter. Butcher's twine and two passes is enough.
Stock No. 194aA white stock, i.e. one made so as to give no color to the finished dish. Unsalted chicken stock, or the bird's own giblets simmered ahead, stands in perfectly well. It should cover the chickens.
Velouté No. 415A white roux cooked without coloring, moistened with the same white stock, simmered until it coats a spoon, then strained. Use a ladle or two of the chicken poaching liquid for it — that is the point of poaching in stock rather than water.
"Well buttered"This is monter au beurre: cold butter whisked in off the heat, generously, until the sauce is glossy. Once the butter is in, the sauce must not return to a boil or it will separate.
Parsley and lemon lastBest added at the end, off the heat. Acid can slacken a flour-thickened sauce held over direct heat, and prolonged cooking dulls the parsley; a tablespoon or so of juice is enough to lift the sauce without turning it acid.
"Dress"Nineteenth-century kitchen usage for arranging on the serving dish, not for stuffing. Set the birds on a warm platter, coat them with the sauce, and send the rest separately in a boat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that kitchen's repertoire — hence the dense cross-references, which assume a cook with the whole book at his elbow. The label a l'Anglaise marks the dish as belonging to the English tradition of boiled fowl, a Sunday and sickroom standard usually sauced with parsley and butter; Ranhofer keeps the English framing but substitutes a French velouté. Boiling was the natural treatment for a young bird before reliable ovens were universal, and it survives in cookbooks of the period as much for the broth it yields as for the chicken itself.