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Chicken Saute Bellevue

A sautéed chicken dish with Madeira, cream, terrapin butter, mushrooms, truffles, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chicken Saute Bellevue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chicken pieces and brown on both sides.

  3. Stir in the chopped shallots and cook until they are yellow.

  4. Pour in the Madeira and let it reduce until nearly dry.

  5. Add the chicken stock and cook for 15 minutes.

  6. Mix in the terrapin butter and cream, then cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  7. Season with salt, paprika, and chopped tarragon.

Serve

  1. Serve in a chafing dish, garnished with prepared mushrooms and sliced truffles.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, and browning it builds flavour in the pan.
Madeira
Reduced nearly dry to add concentrated, slightly sweet, aromatic depth to the sauce.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which is then reduced and enriched.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded texture.
Terrapin butter
Adds butter fat and richness, enriching the sauce's flavour and mouthfeel.
Shallots
Cooked until yellow to add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the Madeira until nearly dry. Reducing concentrates the wine's flavour and sugars while evaporating alcohol and excess liquid. Stopping at nearly dry keeps the sauce intense without becoming sticky or bitter before the stock is added.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, shallot, cream, mushroom, truffle):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, shallot, cream, mushroom, truffle. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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