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Chicken Etuve, Meridional
Singe, draw, cut the head and feet off a fine tender, three-pound chicken, cut it into twelve even pieces, season with one and a half teaspoons salt and one teaspoon white pepper. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons good oil in an earthen casserole dish, add the chicken and fry on the range for fifteen minutes, turning the pieces once in a while. Lift the chicken up with a fork and place on a dish. Slice exceedingly fine two medium, white onions, add to the casserole and fry for three minutes. Place the chicken on top of the onions with a peeled bean garlic; peel and cut into quarters three medium, ripe tomatoes. Season with two saltspoons each salt and white pepper; arrange the tomatoes around the chicken, pour in half a gill each claret and water; tightly cover the pan, boil for five minutes, then set in the oven for forty minutes longer. Remove and serve without uncovering.
A straightforward Provençal smothered chicken, but the original assumes a stovetop-safe earthenware pot and gives no oven temperature. A few conversions and one temperature will get you there.
- The hinge: keep it sealedThe whole method depends on the lid staying on. All the liquid is a quarter cup of wine and a quarter cup of water; the rest of the moisture comes from the onions and tomatoes and must not escape. Use a heavy lid, or lay foil under it, and resist lifting it in the oven.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Treat it as a moderate oven, 350F, for the 40 minutes. The bird has already had 15 minutes of frying and 5 minutes at a boil, so check the thickest thigh piece for 165F rather than trusting the clock.
- The casseroleAn "earthen casserole dish" here is a glazed earthenware pot used directly over the flame, not a baking dish. Much modern earthenware will crack on a burner; a 3- to 4-quart enameled cast iron or heavy stainless braiser does the same job.
- Gill and saltspoonA gill is half a cup, so half a gill each of claret and water is 1/4 cup each. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, making the second seasoning roughly 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon white pepper.
- White pepperA full teaspoon in the first seasoning plus more later is assertive by current taste. Start with half and adjust at the table.
- "A peeled bean garlic"A clove of garlic, peeled and left whole; the usage probably renders the French gousse d'ail. One whole clove braised for 40 minutes is mild; two or three will not be out of place.
- ClaretClaret meant red Bordeaux. Any dry, medium-bodied red works; avoid anything oaky or sweet.
- Cutting into twelveTwo drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and each breast half cut in three gives roughly even pieces from a 3-lb bird. Serves four, with bread or rice to take up the small amount of sauce.
Étuvé comes from the French étuver, to cook slowly in a covered vessel in its own moisture; English "stew" derives from the same Old French root. Méridional simply means southern, the shorthand French cooks used for the Provençal register of oil, tomato, onion and garlic rather than the butter and cream of the north. The instruction to serve without uncovering keeps the trapped steam in the pot until it reaches the table. Books of this kind, aimed at American households at a time when much hotel and restaurant cooking in the United States was French-trained, routinely printed such dishes under their menu-French names, which is why a plain chicken braise arrives here with a two-word title and no oven temperature.