Chef Juliette
Poulets Sautés
The master sauté for poultry: jointed chicken coloured hard in clarified butter, cooked piece by piece to tenderness, then reunited with a pan sauce made from every bronze trace of fond.
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Poulet Sauté Chasseur
Created by Chef Juliette
Based on No. 1543, Poulet Sauté Chasseur, from Le Guide Culinaire (1907) by Auguste Escoffier
Butter-bronzed chicken, a sharply reduced white-wine swill, and glossy Chasseur Sauce: this is the sauté that proves a finished sauce still depends on what happens beneath the bird.
Main Dishes
French
Weeknight
Comfort Food
Dinner Party
20 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 5 min total
Yield4 servings
Poulet Sauté Chasseur (sautéed chicken with hunter's sauce) teaches one true thing: a prepared sauce cannot rescue a weak pan reduction. Brown the chicken in equal butter and oil, lift it out, then swill the fond with white wine and reduce that liquid until the raw wine is gone and only concentrated flavor remains. The reduction is the hinge. Rush it, and the chasseur tastes washed out.
The original entry assumed a saucier on staff, Chasseur Sauce Escoffier waiting nearby, and a stockpot never off the fire. It needed no salamander, and neither do you. For one cook, one stove, one evening, that brigade scaffolding becomes 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of finished sauce prepared from its own entry, one wide sauté pan, and a chicken cut for four. The sauce stays whole here because the book keeps it whole. What cannot go is the sequence: sauté, dish, swill, reduce, then sauce.
Keep your nerve at the wine reduction. Let it boil hard until it turns glossy and no longer smells sharp, but watch the fond closely: chestnut brown is flavor, black is bitterness. If it catches, leave the black specks behind and continue in a clean pan with the wine. Ça se rattrape. The one step that decides dinner is the hard reduction of that white-wine swill.
Poulet sauté chasseur belongs to the Parisian classical table and the wider cuisine bourgeoise, where a quickly cooked bird could be finished with one of the kitchen's standing sauces. Chasseur means hunter, but the name denotes the familiar combination of mushrooms, shallot, white wine, tomato, and herbs rather than proving the dish came from a single hunting district. Its journey to the home table was natural: the sauce could wait, while the chicken and its fresh pan reduction were cooked at the last moment.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
whole chicken
Quantity
1, about 3 1/2 to 4 pounds (1.6 to 1.8 kg)
cut into 8 serving pieces
fine sea salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 ml / 9 g)
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml / 1 g)
unsalted butter
Quantity
2 tablespoons (30 ml / 28 g)
divided
neutral oil
Quantity
2 tablespoons (30 ml / 27 g)
divided
dry white wine
Quantity
3 tablespoons (45 ml / 45 g)
Chasseur Sauce Escoffier
Quantity
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 ml / 160 g)
flat-leaf parsley leaves
Quantity
1 tablespoon (15 ml / 4 g)
concassed
hot water (optional)
Quantity
Up to 1 tablespoon (15 ml / 15 g)
only if needed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole chickencut into 8 serving pieces | 1, about 3 1/2 to 4 pounds (1.6 to 1.8 kg) |
| fine sea salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 ml / 9 g) |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml / 1 g) |
| unsalted butterdivided | 2 tablespoons (30 ml / 28 g) |
| neutral oildivided | 2 tablespoons (30 ml / 27 g) |
| dry white wine | 3 tablespoons (45 ml / 45 g) |
| Chasseur Sauce Escoffier | 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 ml / 160 g) |
| flat-leaf parsley leavesconcassed | 1 tablespoon (15 ml / 4 g) |
| hot water (optional)only if needed | Up to 1 tablespoon (15 ml / 15 g) |
Equipment Needed
- •12-inch (30 cm) heavy sauté pan
- •Instant-read thermometer
- •Tongs or a broad slotted turner
- •Warm oval serving platter
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the chicken
Set the Chasseur Sauce Escoffier within reach. Pat every chicken piece thoroughly dry, then season all over with the salt and pepper. A wet bird releases water into the pan and steams before it browns; dry skin lets the equal measures of butter and oil do their proper work.
- 2
Sauté the chicken
Sauté means cooking briskly in a shallow layer of fat. Heat 1 tablespoon each of the butter and oil in a wide, heavy pan over medium-high heat until the butter foams and then settles. Add the legs, thighs, and wings skin-side down without crowding, working in two batches if necessary. Brown them for 5 to 6 minutes, turn, lower the heat to medium, and continue turning occasionally until they reach at least 165°F (74°C), preferably about 175°F (79°C) beside the thigh bone, 16 to 20 minutes in all. Transfer them to a warm platter. Add the remaining butter and oil, then cook the breast pieces skin-side down until deeply golden before turning and finishing them to 165°F (74°C), about 10 to 14 minutes. Dish them beside the dark meat and keep the pan.
- 3
Preserve the fond
Set the chicken in a warm place while you finish the sauce. If the pan holds more than a thin film of fat, spoon off the excess, but do not wipe away the chestnut glaze stuck to its floor. That glaze is the fond, the browned foundation that joins the sautéed bird to the finished chasseur.
- 4
Reduce the swill
Return the pan to medium-high heat, pour in the white wine, and swill it firmly around the pan while scraping up every brown speck with a wooden spoon. Boil hard until the wine falls from 3 tablespoons to roughly 1 tablespoon, looks lightly syrupy, and smells rounded rather than raw. This reduction is the dish, not brigade scaffolding, so do not stop while it is still watery. If any pan patches are black rather than brown, do not scrape them in; pour the wine into a clean small saucepan, leave the burnt film behind, and finish reducing there. Ça se rattrape.
Trust the smell as much as the measure. Sharp, alcoholic wine needs more boiling; a concentrated scent of chicken, mushroom, and wine means the reduction is ready. - 5
Heat the chasseur
Add the Chasseur Sauce Escoffier to the reduced wine and stir over medium heat until the sauce simmers, turns glossy, and coats the back of a spoon, about 2 to 3 minutes. If it runs thin, reduce it a little longer before it reaches the chicken. If it tightens too far, loosen it with hot water one teaspoon at a time. You want a sauce that pours generously but does not flood the platter.
- 6
Sauce and serve
Pour the hot chasseur over the chicken, letting it pool beneath the pieces while some browned skin remains visible. Concass the parsley, meaning chop it roughly rather than mincing it to dust, and scatter it over the sauced bird. Bring the platter straight to the table while the glaze still shines. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Chasseur Sauce Escoffier is a finished component in the source entry, so its separate preparation is not rebuilt inside this recipe. Have the full 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons measured before the chicken meets the pan. C'est la même grammaire: one sauce preparation opens the door to several dishes.
- •Choose a modest chicken rather than a large roasting bird. Smaller joints cook through while their surfaces brown; oversized breast pieces dry at the edges before the centre is ready. Technique first, always.
- •Use a dry, unoaked white wine with enough acidity to sharpen the butter and tomato. The pan concentrates everything in it, so avoid a wine that tastes sweet or heavily woody.
- •Pour the sauce over the chicken only when everyone is ready to eat. The glaze should cling while the browned surface still has character; letting the bird wait under sauce softens it.
Advance Preparation
- •Prepare the Chasseur Sauce Escoffier according to its own entry up to two days ahead, cool it promptly, cover, and refrigerate. Measure it before cooking and let the sauté pan heat it after the wine reduction, exactly as the source directs.
- •The chicken may be cut into serving pieces and left uncovered in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours. The dry surface browns particularly well; season it shortly before cooking.
- •Do not sauté the chicken ahead. The finished sauce may wait, but the bird and its pan reduction belong to the last forty-five minutes before dinner.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 275g)
Calories
650 calories
Total Fat
43 g
Saturated Fat
13 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
27 g
Cholesterol
205 mg
Sodium
1250 mg
Total Carbohydrates
5 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
2 g
Protein
59 g
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