No. 2292

Hashed Chicken, Ancient Style

Hachis de Volaille a l'Ancienne

Raise the breasts of a roast chicken, remove the skin and sinewy parts and cut the meat into three-sixteenths of an inch squares; also cut a shallot into one-eighth inch squares; fry all lightly in butter without coloring, then add chervil, parsley and mushrooms, all well chopped; fry once more and mix with veloute sauce (No. 415); warm the preparation thoroughly and thicken with egg-yolks, cream, butter and lemon juice. Dress and garnish around with heart-shaped bread croutons fried in butter. An equal quantity of potatoes cut the same size as the chicken may be added, and when the whole is dressed strew the top with chopped parsley.

← No. 2291 Corned Beef Hash, American Style Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2293 Hashed Chicken, Baked →

For the Modern Kitchen

A leftovers dish dressed for a Delmonico's menu: cold roast chicken, a velouté, and an egg-and-cream liaison. Everything hinges on the last step.

The liaison must not boilOnce the egg yolks and cream go in, keep the pan below a simmer — around 175F is plenty. A boil scrambles the yolks and the hash turns grainy and weeping instead of glossy. Add the butter and lemon juice off the heat at the very end.
Velouté, No. 415A velouté is a blond roux (butter and flour cooked without color) moistened with white chicken or veal stock and simmered down until it coats a spoon. Add it sparingly: the hash should be bound, not soupy.
The diceThree-sixteenths of an inch is a scant 5 mm — a small, deliberate cut, not a shred. The shallot at one-eighth inch is about 3 mm. Uniformity is the point of the dish; it is what separates this from a pulled-chicken filling.
QuantityThe breasts of one roast chicken give something in the region of 8 to 12 oz of trimmed meat, depending on the bird; the recipe fixes neither a size nor a number of servings. Legs and thighs work but are darker and moister than the original intends.
MushroomsChop cultivated white or cremini mushrooms fine and cook them in the butter until their water has gone before the sauce joins them, or that water will thin the velouté. The recipe says only 'mushrooms'; the cultivated Paris mushroom, close to today's button, would have been the likely candidate in a kitchen of this kind.
ChervilStill sold fresh in some markets but often missing; it is delicate and anise-scented, and its flavor dies with heat, so add it near the end. Tarragon in a much smaller amount is the usual stand-in, though it is louder.
"Without coloring"Moderate heat and a light hand — this is a white entrée, and browned shallot or butter will muddy both the color and the taste.
Potatoes, if addedBoil waxy potatoes until just tender, cool them, then cut to the same 5 mm dice so they hold their shape. Raw potato cut that small will not cook through in the sauce without overcooking the chicken.
CroûtonsCut bread into hearts about two inches across and fry in clarified butter so they stay crisp; whole butter browns and burns at that heat. Arrange them points-out around the mound just before serving, or they soften.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's thousands of numbered, cross-referenced recipes were meant as a professional system rather than home reading — which is why the velouté here arrives as "No. 415" and nothing more. À l'ancienne means simply "in the old style"; on French menus it covered a range of preparations and was not tied to one fixed formula, though it often attached to dishes finished with a white sauce, as here. It signals tradition more than any single historical dish. Hashes like this one belonged to the economy of a large kitchen, where roast fowl came back from the dining room half-carved and the breast meat was too good to waste; the American corned beef hash sitting at No. 2291 makes the same point in a plainer register. The heart-shaped fried crouton is a period tell, a common garnish for creamed entrées in professional kitchens of the era.