Betty Lives!

(Ragout of chicken with onions, bacon and mushrooms)

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Mary and Vincent Price

1965

I had the idea to prepare one more recipe from the Prices’ book as a tie-breaker before I retire it for a bit.  But truthfully this recipe from the celebrated Hostellerie de la Poste is a French classic and hard to ruin.  Plus I love braised chicken in wine so the decks were pretty stacked for a positive outcome.

The preparation begins with three strips of bacon diced and sauteed with one medium onion and one carrot, chopped.  Once the veggies are slightly browned you add a quartered chicken - I cut mine in eighths because the cooking time seemed short for quarters - which is browned.  Then my favorite part: you get to add 1/4 cup of cognac, light it on fire and watch it go whoosh!  4 tbl of flour are stirred into the bacon drippings/vegetables which will thicken the sauce later, plus 2 cups Burgundy, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 tsp salt, peppercorns, 2 cloves minced garlic and a bouquet garni (thyme, parsley stems, a bay leaf). The lot gets cooked over low heat for 45 minutes and then the ultimate irony in French technique occurs: you strain out all those yummy vegetables and bacon that have been stewing in the wine and toss them.  Sigh.  At this point I diverged slightly from the directions and reduced the sauce by a good amount until it was rich and thicker.  I like my wine sauce to coat, not run all over the plate.

The chicken is served with the classic “Grandmother garnish” which means glazed pearl onions, sauteed mushrooms, croutons, and crisp lardons (in this case bacon).  It’s delicious but requires the use of FIVE pans on the stove; the culinary opposite of a meal-in-one. Maybe I’ve been away from Paris for too long, but I went insane for this dish and pretty much licked the pot clean.  Doug loved it too, as did the kids which made me very proud of them.

You’ll notice in the photo the heart-shaped crouton:

This is a Cordon Bleu tradition.  The Chef-Instructor (who thinks he’s a stud but hasn’t really been one for twenty years) prepares the heart crouton at the end of his demonstration, looks lecherously at some poor, young female student in the front row, and offers her “his heart.” You gotta love those French!