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Poulet Saute a L'estragon- -chicken Sauted with Tarragon

A sautéed chicken finished with white wine and herbs including tarragon, parsley, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Poulet Saute a L'estragon- -chicken Sauted with Tarragon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken and sauce

  1. Cook the chicken as directed for Chicken with White Wine.

  2. Add the chopped shallots and fry for 1 minute.

  3. Moisten with white wine and finish the sauce as previously stated.

Add the herbs and serve

  1. Before serving, add the chopped parsley, chervil, and tarragon to the sauce.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main protein, which firms and browns as it cooks in the pan.
Shallots
Soften in the hot fat and add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the sauce.
White wine
Deglazes the pan and adds acidity and flavour to the sauce.
Tarragon
Adds a fresh, anise-like aroma to the finished sauce.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, fresh herbal aroma to the sauce.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal aroma and light flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the herbs before serving. Fresh herbs lose their aroma and colour when heated for long. Stirring them in just before serving keeps the sauce fresh-tasting, since their volatile flavour compounds fade with prolonged cooking.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, shallot, white wine, chervil, tarragon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, shallot, white wine, chervil, tarragon. 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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