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Chicken a LA Bechamel

A roasted chicken coated in béchamel sauce, aspic, and garnished with bacon, ham, prawns, truffles, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken a LA Bechamel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Prepare the chicken by picking, singeing, and drawing it.

  2. Truss the chicken with skewers or strings.

  3. Rub the chicken all over with lemon juice and place it in a buttered cloth with bacon on the breast.

  4. Tie the cloth around the chicken.

Poach the chicken

  1. Simmer the chicken gently in a stew-pan for about 1 hour.

  2. Remove the stew-pan from the heat.

  3. Let the chicken cool in the liquid.

  4. Take the chicken out of the stew-pan.

  5. Remove the trussing.

Mask and garnish

  1. Cover the chicken with a thick layer of white chaudfroid sauce.

  2. Mask the chicken with a little liquid aspic jelly.

  3. Garnish the breast with rounds of cooked ox-tongue or ham.

  4. Mask the rounds with colored aspic jelly.

  5. Use a piping bag to garnish the rounds with finely chopped aspic jelly.

  6. Skewer prawns or crayfish and whole truffles through the chicken's breast and wings.

  7. Decorate with blocks of aspic and sprigs of fresh tarragon and chervil.

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. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sauce + crayfishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Butter + crayfishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main cooked meat, which stays moist when gently simmered and cooled in its liquid.
White chaudfroid sauce
Forms a thick, smooth coating that covers the chicken and gives the dish its white finish.
Liquid aspic jelly
Sets into a clear glossy layer that seals the decoration in place.
Bacon
Lays fat over the breast during simmering, adding richness and keeping the meat moist.
Lemon juice
Acidity brightens the flavor of the chicken before it is cooked.

The step that matters

Simmer the chicken gently and let it cool in the liquid. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and juicy, and cooling it slowly in the liquid helps it stay moist. Boiling would toughen the meat and make the chaudfroid coating uneven.

“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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