Skip to main content
Main

Chickens, a LA Florentine

Braised chickens larded with truffles, garnished with quenelles, mushrooms, cocks' combs and rice croquettes, served with Allemande sauce on fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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.

  2. Lard the breasts with black truffles.

  3. Cover the chickens with thin layers of fat bacon to keep the truffles moist.

Braise and fry

  1. Braise the chickens in white broth until cooked through.

  2. Fry bread to a light brown color to create a croustade.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the croustade in the center of the dish.

  2. Garnish with small quenelles of fowl colored with lobster spawn.

  3. Garnish with truffles shaped like olives, mushrooms, double cocks' combs, and small rice croquettes mixed with grated Parmesan.

  4. Sauce the chickens with Allemande sauce, avoiding the breasts.

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
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist through braising.
Black truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma and flavor to the breast meat when larded into it.
Fat bacon
Covers the chickens to baste and keep the truffles and meat moist while cooking.
Bread
Fried to light brown to form a crisp base, adding browning and crunch under the chicken.
Allemande sauce
Adds a rich, velvety coating that gives the chicken moisture and a creamy texture.
Rice
Forms small croquettes that add starchy body and a crisp exterior to the garnish.

The step that matters

Braise the chickens in white broth until cooked through. Braising in liquid over gentle heat breaks down connective tissue and keeps meat moist, but the chicken must reach full doneness to be safe while still staying tender.

“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.

You might also like

Rice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipesCheese RiceCheese Rice12 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes