Poulet Sauté Chasseur
Cut up a 2 ½ to 3-pound chicken for sautéing. Heat 2 tablespoons salad oil in a skillet and in it cook the chicken, skin side down, until it is brown. Turn the pieces and brown the other side. Add to the skillet ½ cup mushrooms, cleaned and sliced, and continue to cook until the mushrooms are soft. Remove the chicken and mushrooms to a deep dish and keep them warm. Drain off the oil and to the pan add 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon shallots or half an onion, chopped. Sprinkle the vegetables with 1 tablespoon Hour and cook, stirring, until the roux is golden. Add ½ cup white wine and continue to cook, stirring, until the wine is reduced by half. Add ¾ cup cooked tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes longer. Return the pieces of chicken to the sauce, cover the skillet, and simmer all together for about 20 minutes, until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Correct the seasoning with salt and pepper and serve the poulet sauté chasseur from a deep dish, sprinkled with finely chopped mixed tarragon and parsley.
Poulet Sauté aux Champignons (Sautéed Chicken with Mushrooms)
Prepare a 2 ½- to 3-pound fryer for sautéing and season the pieces with salt and pepper. Melt 2 tablespoons clarified butter in a skillet and in it cook the pieces of chicken, skin side down, until they are brown. Turn the chicken, add to the pan a dozen mushrooms. cleaned and sliced, and cook for 5 minutes longer. Add 2 shallots or half a small onion, finely chopped, sprinkle the vegetables with 1 tablespoon flour, and cook all together, stirring, for a minute or two. Add ½ cup white wine, cover the pan, and simmer the chicken for about 30 minutes, until it is very under. Mix ¼ cup cream with 1 egg yolk and warm the mixture with a little of the pan sauce. Remove the skillet from the heat, add the cream and egg yolk, and shake and move the pan in a circular motion to blend the sauce. Correct the seasoning and serve from a deep serving dish.
Instead of wine, ½ cup water may be used to make the sauce. In this case, flavor the sauce with the juice of ½ lemon before adding the cream and egg yolk.
Roasting chickens and the older fowl used for boiling and braising weigh about the same—from three and a half to six pounds—but fowl needs long, slow, moist heat to make it tender. Capons, which run still heavier, are always tender. Chicken (or capon) roasted in the French manner has a deliciously brown, slightly crisp skin, and the flesh is juicy and succulent. Set your oven at a moderately hot temperature, around 375° F. Rub the bird with butter and turn it frequently as it cooks, so that the juices go through the flesh somewhat as they do when the bird is roasted on a revolving spit. To prevent the juices in the pan from scorching, add a very little water, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. and replace the water as it cooks away.
Small chickens, such as fryers, are rarely stuffed, but larger roasters and capons usually are. In stuffing any bird, be sure to fill the cavity loosely or the stuffing may burst out of the bird when it expands during the cooking. A stuffed chicken takes longer to roast than an unstuffed bird, because the heat has to penetrate the stuffing, and so slows down the cooking of the chicken itself. Allow twenty-five to thirty-five minutes longer for a stuffed four-pound bird, which would take about one to one and a halt hours if it were nor stuffed. If the bird seems to brown too quickly at 375° F., turn down the heat or cover the breast with a buttered paper. Do not overcook and thus dry out a roasted bird; when the juice that follows a fork that pierces the second joint is clear, the bird is done.
Birds that are to be cooked whole, either in the oven or on top of the stove, should be trussed. When the legs and wings are held close to the body, the birds are easier to handle and to turn, and they do not dry out so readily. And, of course, a trussed bird is more attractive when it is served.
Pinterest
