Home › The World's Kitchen › Chicken, Depew
Chicken, Depew
Singe, cut off necks and feet from two tender fresh spring chickens of one and a half pounds each, then split them open through the back, neatly draw, pull out breast bones and cut away spinal bones; wipe well, place between a coarse towel and neatly flatten with a cleaver. Season with a good teaspoon salt, half teaspoon paprika and half teaspoon curry powder, then carefully rub one tablespoon good melted butter over and lightly turn in fine, fresh bread crumbs. Heat one ounce good butter in a sautoir, add the chickens one beside another, gently cook for eight minutes on each side, then set in oven for ten minutes. Remove and keep hot. Wipe neatly and cut two good-sized, fresh red tomatoes in three equal slices each, season with half a light teaspoon salt, half teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons pepper, lightly roll in flour. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in frying pan, arrange the tomatoes in it one beside another and briskly fry for two minutes on each side, place on plate and keep hot. Peel, thoroughly wash and drain eight good-sized, sound, fresh mushrooms, finely slice, place in a small saucepan with tablespoon of the chicken (pan) butter and fry for five minutes, then pour in a tablespoon sherry and one gill demi-glace, season with two saltspoons salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper and half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, cook for eight minutes, lightly mixing meanwhile. Pour the sauce on a hot dish, lay the chickens over, arrange six thin, round slices freshly broiled ham around the chicken, place the tomatoes on top of the ham and serve.
A Delmonico's-style plated dish: split birds cooked flat under crumbs, set on a mushroom demi-glace with fried tomato on broiled ham. The work is in the sequencing, so have all four components moving before the chicken comes out of the oven.
- The hinge: flatten and cook flatSplitting the bird through the back and removing the breast and spinal bones turns it into a single even sheet of meat, which is the only way eight minutes a side plus ten in the oven cooks it through without drying the breast. If the bird is not properly flattened with a cleaver or the heel of a heavy pan, the thighs will still be raw when the crumbs burn.
- Spring chickensA 1 1/2 lb bird is a poussin or a Cornish game hen. Two of them serve four. A standard 4 lb supermarket chicken split in half will not work to these timings; if that is all you have, spatchcock one bird and allow closer to 35-40 minutes total, checking for 165F at the thigh.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. A hot oven of 400-425F for the final ten minutes matches the intent, finishing the interior while setting the crumb.
- SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan, wide and shallow with a lid, oven-safe. Any heavy skillet that holds both halves flat without crowding will do, since the same pan goes into the oven.
- Gill and saltspoonOne gill is 1/2 cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so "two saltspoons pepper" is a scant 1/2 teaspoon.
- Demi-glaceClassically espagnole sauce and brown stock in roughly equal parts, reduced by half. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a jarred version reconstituted to 1/2 cup is the practical substitute; a thin canned broth will not coat the dish and will make the mushrooms watery.
- Mushrooms and the eight minutesSliced mushrooms fried five minutes, then simmered eight in sherry and demi-glace, are meant to release their liquid and let the sauce tighten. Do not cover the pan; the point is reduction.
- TomatoesCut thick slices, about 1/2 inch, from firm fruit, flour them just before they go into the butter, and fry hard for two minutes a side. Slices cut thin or floured in advance will collapse into the pan.
- AssemblySauce on the platter first, chicken over it, ham slices around, tomato on the ham. The crumb crust stays crisp only because nothing is poured over the top.
The International Cook Book (1906) is the work of Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it carries dozens of dishes named for the restaurant's public men in the manner of the period, when a garnish and a sauce were the standard tribute to a regular customer. The name here is generally taken to honor Chauncey M. Depew, the railroad lawyer, senator from New York and the most sought-after after-dinner speaker of the Gilded Age, a fixture of exactly the banquet rooms Filippini cooked for. The construction itself is pure restaurant grammar rather than anything regional: a small bird boned flat and crumbed, a brown sauce built in the same pan, and ham and fried tomato standing in for a vegetable course, all of it plated to be carried through a dining room at speed. The reliance on demi-glace kept at the ready is a reminder that this was written for a kitchen with a stockpot always going, which is why the sauce reads as five minutes' work.]}}}