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Chicken Saute, Mrs. Doubleday
Cut into six even pieces each two tender spring chickens of one and a quarter pounds each. Heat in a frying pan one and a half tablespoons melted butter and add the chicken. Season with a teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Fry the chicken for five minutes on each side, or until a nice golden colour. Then add eight sound, finely chopped shallots; mix well, add one tablespoon flour, a gill and a half cold milk; half gill good sherry and one gill cream; mix well with a wooden spoon. Cover the pan and let briskly cook for fifteen minutes. Add twelve slices of canned mushrooms and twelve very thin slices of truffles; gently mix and cook for five minutes more. Dress on a hot dish, with six timbales of rice, around the chicken and serve.
A straightforward pan sauté with the sauce built in the same pan, written for a cook who already knows how to break down a bird. Two things need translating: the measures, and the size of the chickens.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so the liquids are 3/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup sherry and 1/2 cup cream. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, making the nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon and the cayenne 1/2 teaspoon.
- The cayenne is assertiveHalf a teaspoon of cayenne across two very small birds reads hot by modern palates, and it goes in at the start where it toasts in the butter. A quarter teaspoon gives the same warmth without dominating the cream.
- Spring chickensA 1 1/4 lb bird is a poussin or a Cornish game hen, not a supermarket roaster. Two of them cut into six pieces each gives twelve small pieces that will cook through in the stated time; a single 3 1/2 lb chicken cut the same way will need closer to 30 minutes covered.
- More fat than specifiedA tablespoon and a half of butter will not brown twelve pieces of chicken without scorching. Use three tablespoons, or butter with a spoonful of neutral oil, and brown in two batches rather than crowding.
- Flour into fat, then liquidThe flour goes in with the shallots and should cook in the butter for a minute before the cold milk, sherry and cream follow, or the sauce will taste raw and pasty. Add the liquids gradually and stir them smooth before covering the pan.
- Keep it below a boil"Briskly cook" is period language for a lively simmer, not a rolling boil. A cream-and-flour sauce held at a hard boil for fifteen minutes will break and catch on the bottom; keep it just bubbling and check that the thickest thigh pieces reach 165F.
- Mushrooms and trufflesCanned mushrooms were a common pantry item at the time and are already cooked, which is why they only get five minutes. Sliced fresh cremini work but want browning separately first. The truffle slices are garnish; a few drops of truffle oil off the heat, or nothing at all, is a fair substitution.
- Timbales of ricePlain cooked rice pressed into six small buttered molds or ramekins and turned out around the dish. Any small straight-sided cup does the job.
- YieldSix timbales suggests six servings, though twelve small pieces of poussin serves four generously.
"Chicken sauté" is a technique before it is a dish: the bird is jointed, coloured in butter, and the sauce finished in the same pan so that nothing of the browning is lost. This version comes from Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, whose books carry dozens of dishes named for the patrons and acquaintances they were served to; The International Cook Book was itself published by Doubleday, Page & Company, which makes the dedication to Mrs. Doubleday less mysterious than most of them, though the attribution is a courtesy rather than a claim of authorship. The details date it precisely: canned mushrooms and sliced truffles as everyday finishing touches, sherry in the pan, cream rather than stock, and rice served in molds because a formal plate in 1906 wanted a shape on it. Spring chickens of a pound and a quarter were a seasonal item then, sold young and small, and the fifteen-minute covered cooking makes sense only for birds that size.