Chicken simmered in white wine

"The following is my all-time favourite. It's quick, uncomplicated, and with its wine and aromatic flavourings it makes such delicious eating you cannot believe that this heaven-sent dish is bona-fide strict diet food." Julia Child

Last instalment of this particular lucky dip. In a section labelled Stews in her chapter on poultry, we find this recipe from Julia Child. The picture is not of the finished dish but it's ready to cook. I'll give you the recipe first and then I'll meander on about this and that. Mostly about variations.

CHICKEN SIMMERED IN WHITE WINE

All the vegetables should be cut into julienne strips (now that could be a post all of its own)

2 medium carrots, the tender part of 2 medium leeks, 4-6 tender celery sticks

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon, 1 imported bay leaf

About 1.5 kg cut up frying chicken

1 1/2 cups dry white French vermouth or dry white wine

About 1 1/2 cups clear chicken broth

Toss the vegetables with salt, pepper, tarragon and bay leaf; strew a third of them in the bottom of a casserole. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper, and bury them in layers with the rest of the vegetables. Pour in the wine and enough chicken broth barely to cover the chicken. Bring to the simmer, cover and simmer slowly for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the chicken is done (the legs and thighs are tender when pressed, and their juices run clear with no trace of rosy colour). Let the chicken steep in the cooking liquid for 10-15 minutes before proceeding - it will pick up flavour. Degrease the liquid, remove the bay leaf, and you may wish to peel the skin off the chicken pieces.

Serve the chicken and vegetable julienne over a bed of steamed rice basted with the chicken juices.

Indeed it is very simple but curiously old-fashioned and fussy too. I mean julienned vegetables. Does anyone but restaurants do this any more? Maybe we should bring it back. And yes I will do a post on this some time soon. 'An imported bay leaf'! Did they not have bay leaves in America back in the 80s? And dry tarragon rather than fresh. It may be that she has put in dried because fresh was unavailable or she may have preferred the taste of dried tarragon. Mmm. And the choice of wine is curious too - vermouth is also now very old-fashioned. Well I think it is, but maybe I'm wrong. I was never much into vermouth and for all I know it is an essential component of one of those trendy mixed drinks that the young drink these days.

This is one of her 'Master recipes'. It is followed by a few variations - the same chicken but cold in aspic - also rather fancy in an old-fashioned way. I suspect that jellied meat dishes are not very trendy right now. There are also two dishes which use the stock to make slightly different but creamy sauces and a recipe for pie.

All rather unexciting somehow. But I should try it, for I have often found that sometimes the simplest of recipes actually turn out to be the most delicious. We probably all fiddle too much.

So I thought I would check to see what her contemporaries (Elizabeth David, Robert Carrier) did with a similar dish and also what we are all doing today.

Coq au Riesling (shown on the left - Nigel Slater's version) which is a standard French dish and a variation of Coq au vin - which as you all know is made with red wine, is not really the same thing as Julia Child's simple dish. It has mushrooms and it's creamier, so I won't include it here. But mind you in the spirit of Julia Child's basic recipe which can then form the basis of other things you would have to say that Coq au Riesling would have to be one of those variations.

And the other thing that has to be said is that the Coq au Riesling recipes - and most of the variations I found - actually fried the chicken and the vegetables before simmering in liquid. Julia Child's recipe really is like a proper stew from my childhood in which everything was just put into the pot without any prior cooking, covered with liquid and cooked until ready. I remember reading in one of Jamie Oliver's books, with reference to a beef stew cooked like this, that he thought that in many ways this method was more flavoursome.

So what did Elizabeth David and Robert Carrier have to offer in similar vein. Well Elizabeth David didn't really have anything similar. She had Poule au Pot, which is a whole chicken poached with vegetables and various sautés, but most of her casseroles were for the whole bird or were much more complicated. I suspect she doesn't really like straight stews.

Robert Carrier on the other hand had several and I only looked in his Great Dishes of the World book. Here are two of them.

QUICK CHICKEN IN WINE

This is really a quick version of Coq au Vin which is the preceding recipe in the book. It's made with red wine but it could be white I guess.

The photograph is from somebody's blog - it's apparently not quite the same as the original but more or less.

1 small broiler (1-1.5kg), 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 4 slices bacon, diced, 4 tablespoons brandy, 275ml red wine,1 bay leaf, 2 cloves, pinch thyme, 12 small white onions, salt and freshly ground black pepper, 12 small mushrooms, 4tbsp finely chopped parsley, 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp butter

Cut chicken into 4 or 8 serving pieces and brown in frying pan with butter and olive oil. Add diced bacon and brown lightly. Heat brandy, ignite and pour over chicken. Add red wine, bay leaf, cloves, thyme, peeled onions and salt and paper, to taste. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add button mushrooms and finely chopped parsley and cook for 5 to 10 minutes more, or until chicken is tender. Transfer chicken pieces to a hot serving dish and thicken sauce by gradually stirring in a beurre manié, made by kneading 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon butter to a smooth paste. Correct seasoning and pour sauce over chicken pieces.

As you can see this is somewhat fussier (pouring over flaming brandy, peeling 12 small onions) but I guess you could simplify. And I'm not sure you really would need to thicken the sauce - just reduce it. Bet it tastes good though.

CHICKEN IN CHAMPAGNE OASIS

No picture here and it's a bit extravagant - champagne and lots of egg yolks to thicken the sauce. Me, I'd just reduce it. Very, very simple though.

1 tender chicken (about 1.35kg), 4-6 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion, salt and freshly ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/2 bottle champagne, 275ml cream, 4 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons cream

Cut chicken into serving pieces and simmer in butter in a fire-proof casserole with finely chopped onion and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Turn chicken pieces several times; cover casserole and let them steam on the lowest possible heat for 10 minutes. The chicken should not take on colour.

Sprinkle chicken pieces with flour, turn several times and then pour over champagne. Cover casserole and simmer gently for 15 minutes more until the chicken is tender.

Arrange chicken pieces on a warm serving dis; cover and keep warm in a low oven. Reduce pan juices in which chicken has cooked to a quarter of the original quantity over a brisk flame. Add cream and continue cooking, stirring rom time to time until sauce is reduced by half.

Whisk egg yolks and remaining cream until well blended; add a little of the hot sauce to this mixture; blend well and pour mixture into hot sauce. Simmer sauce over a very low flame, or over water, until sauce is thick and smooth. Do not allow it to boil. Correct seasoning and strain the sauce over the chicken through a fine sieve. Serve very hot.

And what do we do today? Is it very different? Well Nigel Slater, of course, has a recipe that he calls A Really Good, Simple Chicken Supper. In this dish he very slowly fries the chicken pieces until almost done. Takes them out, pours in wine to deglaze, puts the chicken back and cooks a bit more with the lid. Then he adds lots of squashed garlic and chopped parsley, cooks a bit more (with more wine if necessary). Squeeze over some lemon juice, cook a bit more (not much). Fish out the garlic, put the chicken on a plate, swirl butter through the juices and pour over the chicken. Sounds yummy.

Bill Granger has a Pot Roasted Chicken with Garlic and White Wine and Sylivia Colloca has Pollo in Potacchio - yes I know it's Italian and it has tomatoes, but really it's virtually the same thing. Here are pictures of these two. Bill Granger on the left, Sylvia Colloca on the right.

pot roast chicken

pollo in potacchio

I suppose I have sort of avoided the issue of when is a stew a stew and when is it a braise or a sauté or a pot roast. And I also suppose that I have raised the question of how far you can go with your variations before it becomes a completely different dish. I suppose the simplest variations would be to cut the vegetables differently, and/or use different vegetables, different wine, different liquid. Maybe I have strayed too far with my offered variations for the method is different. Julia Child very definitely did not fry anything before adding the liquid. A friend once described a chicken dish I had cooked for a dinner party as yet another of Rosemary's thousand and one ways with chicken. Which proves the point really. The possibilities are endless. Once you make one change you are tempted to make another and eventually you are way, way beyond the original.

But that's what makes cooking fun - and creative.