No. 2467

Chicken Fricassee-Chaudfroid

Fricassee de Poulet-Chaudfroid

Prepare a fricassee with a good, large chicken the same as for fricassee of chicken (No. 1861), add two dozen large mushroom heads turned and channeled (No. 118). Remove the pieces of chicken singly and suppress all the skin and most of the bone, then range them on a tray; remove the mushrooms and set them aside to get cold; strain the sauce into a small saucepan without thickening it with eggs, and let get cold while stirring, incorporating into it slowly a few spoonfuls of cold jelly, then thicken it slightly on ice, stirring it the same as a chaudfroid sauce. Take up the pieces of chicken with a fork, and immerse them thoroughly in the sauce, not having it too thick; do the same with the mushrooms, and leave to drain well; dress them as quickly as each piece is done in a pyramid form on a very cold dish; cover with half-set jelly, using a brush for the purpose, and dress the mushrooms around the chickens, surrounding these with a border of jelly pushed through a cornet. Keep the dish for one-quarter of an hour in the ice-box before serving.

← No. 2466 Chicken Breasts a la Gallier The Cold Service No. 2468 Chickens Sauted a la Sherman →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold set-piece from Ranhofer's Delmonico repertoire: a white chicken fricassee, coated in its own jellied sauce and built into a pyramid. The whole thing turns on the sauce reaching the right degree of set before it touches the chicken.

The hinge: coating temperatureThe sauce must be cool and just beginning to thicken — thick enough to cling in an even layer, thin enough to flow off. Test on a chilled spoon; if it sets opaque and stiff there, it is too far gone and needs brief rewarming, and if it runs clear off it needs more time over ice.
Cross-references you needNo. 1861 is the white chicken fricassee that this dish is built on; the wording here ("without thickening it with eggs") indicates that version is normally finished with an egg liaison. No. 118 is the cross-reference for turning and channeling mushroom caps. The instruction here is to skip the egg liaison, since the jelly does the setting.
The jelly"Cold jelly" means a clarified savoury aspic made from strong veal or chicken stock, reduced until it sets firm on its own or reinforced with gelatine. For a modern kitchen, powdered or leaf gelatine bloomed in strong, well-skimmed, clarified stock is the practical route: roughly enough to give a jelly that holds a clean cut but is not rubbery.
"Half-set jelly" and the brushJelly at the syrupy stage, just short of setting. Brushed on in thin successive coats over a thoroughly chilled dish it builds a glassy layer; poured on warm it dissolves the chaudfroid coating underneath.
A large chickenThe recipe calls only for a "good, large chicken"; no weight is given. It is jointed and cooked as a fricassee, then the pieces are skinned and largely boned as directed before coating.
CornetA paper piping cone. Chopped set jelly spooned into a border, or firm jelly piped through a small plain tip, gives the same effect.
Cold chainWork with a chilled tray, a chilled serving dish, and the sauce over an ice bath. The recipe allows a quarter of an hour in the ice-box before serving; in a home kitchen assemble in stages, refrigerating between coats, and keep the finished dish at 40F or below until it goes to the table.
YieldOne large chicken with two dozen mushroom heads, dressed as a single pyramid on one dish, so it is served as a shared cold course rather than plated individually. Best made for the day it is served, since aspic coatings lose their clarity on standing.

A Little History

Chaud-froid — literally "hot-cold" — is the classic French method of dressing a dish cooked hot and served cold, masked in a sauce that has been set with aspic so it clings as a smooth opaque coat. It is generally traced to the late eighteenth century and became a fixture of nineteenth-century grande cuisine, where the cold buffet was a showcase for a kitchen's discipline: the sauce had to be clarified, the coating faultless, the jelly clear as glass. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that kitchen, and its cold service section carries a long run of numbered entries.