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Chicken Fricassee, Hollandaise
Cut off the head and feet from a tender three-pound chicken; singe, draw and cut into twelve even pieces; place in a saucepan with a sliced carrot and a sliced onion. Tie in a bunch two leeks, two branches parsley, one bay leaf, two cloves, a sprig of thyme and a blade of mace, and add to the chicken with a quart water, one teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper. Cover the pan and boil for forty minutes. Take up all the vegetables. Mix in a saucepan a half ounce butter with an ounce flour, then strain the chicken broth into the pan. Add twelve finely sliced canned mushrooms, mix well until it comes to a boil, then let boil for fifteen minutes. Dilute two egg yolks with a gill of cream, the juice of half a lemon, and add to the sauce; mix while heating for two minutes. Pour the sauce into the chicken, carefully mix for two minutes, dress on a deep dish, sprinkle a little parsley over and serve.
A classic velouté-style fricassee: the bird is poached, the broth becomes the sauce, and the sauce is finished with egg yolk and cream. Two lines need attention before you start.
- The hinge: the egg liaisonOnce the yolks, cream and lemon go in, the sauce must not boil or the yolks will curdle into threads. Hold it at 170-180F for the two minutes given, off direct heat if your pan runs hot.
- "Boil" means simmerA hard forty-minute boil will shred a three-pound chicken and cloud the broth. Bring to a boil, then hold at a bare simmer; breast pieces are done at about 25 minutes, legs and thighs at 35-40.
- A gillHalf a cup. Half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon; an ounce of flour is a scant quarter cup, which gives a deliberately loose roux for a pourable sauce.
- Cutting into twelveThe recipe does not say how. One workable division: two wings, two drumsticks, two thighs, each breast half in two, and the back cut across into two or three pieces. The back pieces contribute flavour more than meat.
- The bouquetA blade of mace is one piece of the lacy husk around nutmeg, sold whole in spice shops; a pinch of ground mace substitutes. Tie everything in cheesecloth or leek greens so it lifts out in one motion.
- Canned mushroomsCommon in professional kitchens of the period, and they contribute salt and a soft texture rather than much flavour. Sliced fresh button or cremini mushrooms, sweated in a little butter first, are a straight improvement; a small can is roughly 4 oz drained.
- Hollandaise, 1900 senseNot the butter emulsion sold under that name now. Here "hollandaise" signals a white sauce enriched with yolks, cream and lemon, closer to what a modern kitchen calls an allemande, or a veloute finished with a liaison.
- YieldFour servings as a main course. It wants plain boiled rice, buttered noodles or steamed potatoes to catch the sauce.
Fricassee sits between a stew and a saute: the meat is cooked in liquid but never browned, so the dish stays pale, and the cooking liquid is thickened and returned to the bird. The word appears in English cookery from the sixteenth century and is generally traced to the French fricasser, to fry or stew in pieces. The "hollandaise" tag reflects a period habit of naming sauces by their finishing style rather than by a fixed formula. The International Cook Book (1906), compiled by Alexander Filippini, a longtime chef at Delmonico's in New York, was written for cooks who expected to buy a whole undressed bird -- the instruction to cut off the head and feet and to singe the bird was practical advice, not local colour.