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Chickens, a LA Florentine

A chicken dish braised with truffles, bacon, and white broth, served with a croustade of fried bread and garnished with quenelles, truffles, mushrooms, and rice croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chickens, a LA Florentine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Truss the chickens and lard the breasts with strips of black truffles instead of bacon.

  2. Cover the chickens with thin layers of fat bacon to prevent the truffles from drying out.

  3. Braize the chickens in white broth until cooked.

Prepare the garnish

  1. Prepare a croustade by frying bread until light brown and place it in the center of the dish.

  2. Garnish with quenelles of fowl, truffles shaped like olives, mushrooms, double cocks' combs, and small croquettes of rice mixed with grated Parmesan cheese.

Sauce and serve

  1. Sauce the chickens with Allemande sauce mixed with tomato sauce and a little Chili vinegar, avoiding the breasts.

  2. Fill the croustade with trimmed crayfish tails tossed in some of the sauce and serve.

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

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

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mushroom + parmesan cheesetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Form the main body of the dish, cooked gently in broth to become tender.
Black truffles
Add aroma and earthy flavour; strips placed in the breast keep the meat moist and fragrant.
Fat bacon
Wrapped over the birds, it bastes the meat and protects the truffles from drying out.
Allemande sauce
Enriches the birds with a silky, creamy coating that adds richness and body.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and a bright, tangy note to the creamy sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and browning to the rice croquettes.

The step that matters

Lardi the breasts with truffle and cover with fat bacon. Truffle strips pushed into lean breast meat keep it moist during braising, while the bacon layers shield the truffles and meat from drying out. Without this protection the breasts can become dry and the truffle flavour is lost.

“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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