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 à l’Indienne ou Currie de Poulet
Created by Chef Juliette
Based on No. 1559, Poulet Sauté à l’Indienne ou Currie de Poulet, from Le Guide Culinaire (1907) by Auguste Escoffier
Poulet Sauté à l’Indienne wakes curry powder in hot oil, then lets coconut milk and velouté reduce around browned chicken into a close, golden sauce, with rice à l’Indienne alongside.
Main Dishes
French
Weeknight
Comfort Food
One Pot
25 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 10 min total
Yield4 servings
Poulet Sauté à l’Indienne ou Currie de Poulet (French chicken curry) teaches one precise thing: curry powder must meet hot fat before liquid, long enough to wake its fragrance and no longer. Once the coconut milk and velouté arrive, the spice can soften into the sauce, but it cannot develop what the oil never drew out. Fry it briefly. Watch it closely.
The original kitchen assumed a saucier, a stockpot never off the fire, finished chicken velouté at arm’s reach, and rice à l’Indienne ready to mold. For a home table, one small chicken, a broad sauté pan, measured portions of those prepared components, and sensible management of breast and leg pieces deliver four generous servings. The brigade’s holding pots are scaffolding and can go. The 1:2 measure of coconut milk to velouté, the spice fried with onion, and the uncovered reduction to half are the dish, so they stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.
The finished sauce should be curry-gold and glossy, close enough to cling to each piece without becoming heavy, with the softened onion nearly dissolved beneath it. The only moment that asks for nerve comes before the chicken meets any liquid: the curry should smell round and fragrant after half a minute, never dark or acrid.
Poulet sauté à l’Indienne belongs to the Parisian classical repertoire, where à l’Indienne named a family of curry-seasoned preparations accompanied by rice. These dishes translated imported curry powders and coconut into the French sauce system, binding them with velouté rather than reproducing any one regional Indian curry. The separate rice timbale is not decoration: it receives the reduced sauce without loosening it in the pan.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
small whole chicken
Quantity
1 chicken (about 3 lb 5 oz / 1.5 kg)
cut into 12 small bone-in, skin-on pieces
neutral oil
Quantity
3 tablespoons (45 ml / 41 g)
yellow onion
Quantity
2 cups (475 ml / 250 g)
thinly sliced
mild yellow curry powder
Quantity
2 teaspoons (10 ml / 5 g)
full-fat unsweetened coconut milk, or full-bodied unsweetened almond milk
Quantity
½ cup (120 ml / 120 g)
stirred smooth
prepared chicken velouté
Quantity
1 cup (240 ml / 240 g)
fine salt
Quantity
1 teaspoon (5 ml / 6 g)
divided
prepared rice à l’Indienne
Quantity
3 cups (710 ml / 555 g)
kept hot
hot water (optional)
Quantity
Up to ¼ cup (60 ml / 60 g)
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| small whole chickencut into 12 small bone-in, skin-on pieces | 1 chicken (about 3 lb 5 oz / 1.5 kg) |
| neutral oil | 3 tablespoons (45 ml / 41 g) |
| yellow onionthinly sliced | 2 cups (475 ml / 250 g) |
| mild yellow curry powder | 2 teaspoons (10 ml / 5 g) |
| full-fat unsweetened coconut milk, or full-bodied unsweetened almond milkstirred smooth | ½ cup (120 ml / 120 g) |
| prepared chicken velouté | 1 cup (240 ml / 240 g) |
| fine saltdivided | 1 teaspoon (5 ml / 6 g) |
| prepared rice à l’Indiennekept hot | 3 cups (710 ml / 555 g) |
| hot water (optional) | Up to ¼ cup (60 ml / 60 g) |
Equipment Needed
- •12 to 13-inch (30 to 33 cm) heavy sauté pan or shallow casserole
- •Tongs
- •Instant-read thermometer
- •Deep serving dish
- •3-cup bowl for molding the rice timbale
Instructions
- 1
Ready the components
Have the prepared chicken velouté and rice à l’Indienne finished before the sauté begins, keeping the rice covered and hot for service. Pat every chicken piece dry, because wet chicken chills the oil and sheds its skin instead of coloring. Season the pieces with three-quarters of the salt, reserving the rest for the sauce.
- 2
Wake onion and curry
Heat the oil in a broad, heavy sauté pan over medium heat until it moves freely and gleams. Add the sliced onion with a pinch of the reserved salt and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring, until supple and pale gold at the edges. Push the onion outward, scatter the curry powder directly into the exposed oil, and stir for 20 to 30 seconds, just until its fragrance becomes fuller. If it begins to catch, lift the pan off the heat and add the chicken at once to cool the fat. If the spice has blackened and smells bitter, discard the onion and oil and begin this step again; burnt curry only grows harsher as the sauce reduces.
The curry powder should deepen in fragrance, not in color. Keep the chicken beside the stove so it can enter the pan the instant the spice is ready. - 3
Sauté the chicken
Add the chicken skin-side down and turn each piece through the onion and curry. Cook over medium heat for 7 to 9 minutes, turning once or twice, until the surfaces have lost their raw look and taken patches of gold. Deep browning is not the aim here, since the curry would burn before the chicken reached a mahogany crust. If the pieces cannot sit without stacking, work in two batches over moderate heat, then return everything to the pan before adding liquid.
- 4
Swill and simmer
Pour in the coconut milk, swilling the pan and scraping up every seasoned brown trace from its floor. Add the prepared chicken velouté and stir around the pieces without flooding their crisped upper surfaces. Bring the sauce to a bare simmer, then cook uncovered for 18 to 25 minutes, turning the chicken once. Begin checking the breast pieces early and remove them as they reach 165°F / 74°C; let the legs continue until tender and at least 175°F / 79°C.
- 5
Reduce the sauce
As each piece finishes, lift it to a warm plate. Continue reducing the sauce until the liquid has lost roughly half its original volume and become nappant, thick enough to coat the back of a spoon while still flowing freely. If it reaches that point before the leg pieces are tender, add hot water a tablespoon at a time and continue the gentle simmer. Ça se rattrape. If the chicken finishes while the sauce remains thin, reduce the sauce briskly on its own, then lower the heat and return every piece for 2 minutes. Taste and add the remaining salt only if the velouté has left it necessary.
- 6
Mold rice and serve
Arrange the chicken in a warmed deep serving dish and spoon the onion-rich sauce over it, leaving no browned curry behind in the pan. Rinse a 3-cup bowl with hot water, pack in the hot rice à l’Indienne without crushing it, and invert it onto a separate platter to make the timbale. Bring chicken and rice to the table together, but keep them separate until each plate is served. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Use a mild yellow curry powder, not a curry paste. Its spices must disperse through the frying oil and velouté without bringing extra liquid or flavorings the dish never asked for. If the opened tin smells mostly of dust, replace it.
- •Prepared chicken velouté is the sauce’s structure. Plain stock would leave a broth, while cream would make another dish entirely; the roux-bound velouté is what permits reduction to a close, glossy consistency.
- •Ask the butcher to cut the chicken into 12 small pieces. Smaller breast portions finish closer to the legs, though you should still remove each piece as it becomes ready rather than making the white meat wait.
- •Full-fat coconut milk gives the roundest sauce. The source permits almond milk when coconut is unavailable, but choose an unsweetened, full-bodied one and expect a lighter sauce with less tropical perfume.
- •A Vouvray demi-sec, lightly off-dry Chenin Blanc from the Loire, has enough freshness for the velouté and enough softness for the curry and coconut.
Advance Preparation
- •The chicken velouté can be prepared up to two days ahead and kept covered in the cold, or frozen in 1-cup portions. Stir it smooth before measuring.
- •The chicken can be cut and dried earlier in the day. Keep it uncovered on a tray in the cold so its surface stays dry, then season immediately before cooking.
- •Prepared rice à l’Indienne may be chilled promptly and reheated until thoroughly hot, but keep it separate from the curry. The finished chicken also keeps for up to two days and should be reheated gently so the reduced sauce does not catch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 435g)
Calories
805 calories
Total Fat
44 g
Saturated Fat
15 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
28 g
Cholesterol
155 mg
Sodium
1000 mg
Total Carbohydrates
50 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
52 g
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