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Poitrines De Poulets, Loubet
Take from jar all the chicken breasts left over from day before yesterday and thoroughly drain on a cloth. Place the marinade of the chicken in a saucepan and reduce on the range to one-third the quantity. Then strain it through a cheesecloth into a bowl. Place one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a cocotte dish on the fire and when the butter is thoroughly hot add the chicken and let brown to a nice golden colour, turning the pieces once in a while. Remove all the butter from the pan, add two tablespoons good cognac, set fire to it and burn as long as it lasts; then pour in the reduced marinade; add one very small, peeled, red carrot, one branch white celery, four peeled, well-washed and dried fresh mushrooms and one truffle, all cut into very thin julienne strips, also adding two medium, crushed red tomatoes. Tie in a bunch two branches chervil, one branch parsley, one clove and half bean sound garlic and add to the chicken. Season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper; lightly mix; cover the pan and set in the oven to bake for thirty-five minutes. Remove, take up the tied herbs and send to the table covered.
This is a second-day dish: it assumes you already have chicken breasts sitting in a marinade from an earlier recipe, and its whole character comes from reducing that marinade down into the braising liquid. A few of the vessels and measures need translating.
- The hinge: drain, then dryMeat lifted from a wet marinade will steam rather than brown. The cloth-drying is not fussiness; pat the pieces genuinely dry or the golden colour called for in the second stage will never arrive.
- The marinadeThe recipe depends on a marinade made two days earlier and does not restate it. Any wine-and-aromatics marinade the chicken has actually sat in will do, reduced by two-thirds and strained. Do not substitute fresh, unused marinade poured straight from the bottle; the point is a concentrated liquid that has already taken on flavour from the meat.
- Raw marinated poultryChicken held in liquid for two days must have been refrigerated throughout, and the reduced marinade must come to a full boil, which the reduction step accomplishes. The finished braise should reach 165F at the thickest point.
- CocotteHere it means a small lidded flameproof casserole that goes from burner to oven, not a ramekin of baked eggs. A 2-quart enamelled cast-iron pot is the right size for two to four breasts.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. For a covered braise of this sort a moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern equivalent for the stated thirty-five minutes.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon, which is assertive but deliberate against the cognac and tomato.
- "Half bean sound garlic""Bean" here is almost certainly a size rather than a variety: a bean-sized piece of sound garlic, halved, tied into the herb bundle and removed before serving as the recipe directs.
- The flambePour the butter off first as instructed, take the pan from the flame before adding cognac, and light it with the pot at arm's length. Two tablespoons burns out in well under a minute.
- Truffle and mushroomsOne fresh truffle in julienne is a luxury purchase; a teaspoon of chopped preserved truffle stirred in near the end gives most of the aroma. The mushrooms should be firm white ones cut into matchsticks, not sliced.
- YieldThe recipe fixes no quantity, only "all the chicken breasts left over"; the half teaspoon of salt and tablespoon and a half of butter suggest something on the order of two to four servings. Serve covered, as directed, so the aromatics are still in the air when the lid comes off.
Alexander Filippini, for many years associated with Delmonico's in New York, filled The International Cook Book (1906) with dishes named for the celebrated figures of his day, and "Loubet" is most likely Emile Loubet, President of the French Republic from 1899 to 1906 and much feted in the press for his state visits. Naming a garnish or preparation after a head of state was common restaurant practice, and such names attached themselves loosely, without the dish necessarily having been served to the man. What is more revealing is the premise: this is a recipe for using up chicken breasts already sitting in a marinade jar, rebuilt into a course fit to send out under a cover -- a second-day economy that Filippini's book carries over intact.