No. 1916

Chickens with New Vegetables-Small—Braised

Petits Poulets Braises aux Legumes Nouveaux

Procure two small tender chickens each one to weigh a pound and a half; singe and draw, truss for an entree (No. 178), then lay them in a saucepan with melted butter and fry over a slow fire for ten to twelve minutes, turning them around and not letting them brown; moisten with a pint of stock (No. 194a); season and add a garnishing composed of small new blanched carrots and uncooked fresh green peas. Cover the saucepan and finish cooking the vegetables together with the chickens in a slack oven, occasionally adding a little hot stock (No. 194a). As soon as they are nicely done, drain, untruss and cut each one into four pieces; dress them in a pyramid form in the center of a long dish. Strain the vegetables, thicken them with butter and add a pinch of sugar; range them around the pyramid of chickens, and on both ends of the dish lay a cluster of mushrooms and one of small glazed onions.

← No. 1915 Chicken with Tarragon—Braised Chicken No. 1917 Duck a la Britannia—Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's cross-references make this look harder than it is: strip them away and it is a butter braise of two very small birds with their vegetables, finished in a low oven. The one thing to guard is color — the initial cooking in butter must stay pale, since the whole point of a braisé blanc is a light, ivory sauce rather than a browned one.

The birdsTwo chickens at a pound and a half each means poussins or, in an American market, Cornish game hens of 1¼ to 1¾ lb. Two of them serve four. A single 3-lb chicken will not substitute directly; it needs longer and the vegetables will overcook.
Do not let them brownTen to twelve minutes in melted butter over a slow fire is to set the flesh and start rendering, not to sear. Keep the heat low and turn often; any fond that colors will tint the finished sauce and defeat the dish.
Stock No. 194aRanhofer's cross-reference is to one of his stocks; a light one rather than a dark brown one suits the dish. Use a good unsalted chicken stock and season lightly, remembering that the pan is covered and more hot stock is added as it cooks.
A slack ovenSomething in the region of 275 to 300F. At that temperature reckon roughly 35 to 45 minutes for birds of this size; the thigh should read about 165F, measured clear of the bone.
Add the peas lateRanhofer puts the peas in raw at the start alongside the blanched carrots. If you want them to stay green, fresh shelled peas need only 8 to 10 minutes and can go in near the end of the braise instead. Frozen peas need less still.
Trussing"Trussed for an entree" means legs and wings drawn in tight against the body so the bird holds a compact shape while braising. A single loop of twine around the legs and under the tail is sufficient for a bird this small.
Thicken them with butterThis is monter au beurre, not a roux: strain the vegetables out, reduce the cooking liquid if it is thin, then whisk in cold butter off the heat so it emulsifies. Keep it below a boil or it will break. The pinch of sugar is there to lift the peas and carrots, not to sweeten the sauce.
The end garnishesThe mushrooms and the small glazed onions are cooked separately, not in the braise — button mushrooms tossed in butter with a little lemon to keep them white, and pearl onions glazed in butter with a spoon of stock and sugar until shining.

A Little History

This is entry No. 1916 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. The dish is a textbook braisé blanc — a white braise, in which the meat is deliberately kept from browning so the sauce stays pale and the flavor stays delicate, the same logic behind blanquette and poularde pochée. The insistence on légumes nouveaux, small new carrots and peas still raw when they go into the pan, marks it as a spring dish from a kitchen that could command young vegetables at will; before commercial freezing, fresh green peas were a genuinely seasonal luxury. The pyramid of cut chicken with vegetables ranged around it and clusters of mushrooms and glazed onions at either end of a long platter reflects the taste for composed presentation in the grand American restaurants of the period, where composition on the dish counted for nearly as much as the cooking.