Chef Juliette
Butters and Creams
Beurres et crèmes d’hors-d’œuvre prove that cold-table finesse is mostly timing: smooth good dairy, cover it closely, hold it cool, then season only as you dish so every spoonful keeps a clean edge.
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Chicken Cream
Created by Chef Juliette
Cold white chicken, butter, and cream worked to silk, pressed through a sieve, then lifted with whipped cream: a pale hors d'oeuvre whose whole art lies in texture and last-minute seasoning.
Appetizers & Snacks
French
Make Ahead
Dinner Party
25 min
Active Time
0 min cook•25 min total
YieldAbout 1 cup (4 appetizer servings)
Crème de Volaille teaches the cool emulsion: cold white chicken, pliable butter, and cream become pale and light only while their temperatures stay in balance. There is no pan to save you with browning and no spice to cover a coarse texture. The one true thing is this: cool keeps the butter inside the purée; warmth lets it leak out.
The source assumed a brigade pantry with cooked white fowl ready, a mortar, a tamis, and another pair of hands to whisk the cream. It calls for neither the saucier's stockpot nor a salamander. At home, a small food processor replaces the pounding arm and a sturdy fine-mesh sieve replaces the tamis; the entry already makes four modest appetizer portions, so every ratio remains exactly as written. One cook, one stove, one evening, and in this case the stove may have the night off.
The mortar is scaffolding and can go. The sieving, softly whipped cream, and last-minute salt are the dish and must stay. If the paste warms and turns shiny, stop and chill it before continuing; ça se rattrape. The step that matters most is the sieve: press the base through while it is cool, then scrape every smooth bit from underneath.
Crème de Volaille belongs to the classical Parisian garde-manger, the cold-pantry repertoire of smooth purées, mousses, and hors d'oeuvres, rather than to one provincial French larder. Cooked white poultry was pounded, enriched, and passed through a tamis so a modest piece of breast could serve as a fine canapé spread or filling at the bourgeois table. The English title can mislead: this is not a soup, and crème describes its smooth, enriched texture as much as the dairy within it.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
cold cooked white chicken meat
Quantity
4 ounces (115 g)
skin, fat, and browned edges removed; cut into small pieces
cold heavy cream
Quantity
2 tablespoons (30 ml / 30 g)
unsalted butter
Quantity
1/4 cup (60 ml / 57 g)
softened until pliable but not oily
softly whipped heavy cream
Quantity
3 tablespoons (45 ml / about 25 g), measured after whipping
whipped just before folding
fine salt
Quantity
to taste
added immediately before serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| cold cooked white chicken meatskin, fat, and browned edges removed; cut into small pieces | 4 ounces (115 g) |
| cold heavy cream | 2 tablespoons (30 ml / 30 g) |
| unsalted buttersoftened until pliable but not oily | 1/4 cup (60 ml / 57 g) |
| softly whipped heavy creamwhipped just before folding | 3 tablespoons (45 ml / about 25 g), measured after whipping |
| fine saltadded immediately before serving | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Small food processor, about 3 cups
- •Sturdy fine-mesh sieve
- •Firm flexible scraper
- •Small narrow bowl and whisk
- •Chilled shallow serving dish
Instructions
- 1
Set the temperatures
Chill the serving dish and keep the chicken and cream cold. Let the butter stand only until a thumb leaves an easy indentation while its surface remains matte, then cut it into four pieces. Cold chicken and pliable butter will bind smoothly; hard butter leaves grains, while oily butter escapes from the purée.
Fresh cream in the source means sweet liquid cream with enough fat to whip, not cultured crème fraîche. Crème fraîche would bring a tang the entry does not contain. - 2
Pound the chicken
Put the chicken in a small food processor and pulse until it resembles a very fine meal, stopping twice to scrape the bowl. Add the 2 tablespoons of liquid cream in two additions, processing only until each disappears, then add the softened butter one piece at a time. Pulse to a pale, cohesive paste. If a greasy shine appears around the blade, the mixture has become too warm. Stop, chill the processor bowl for 10 minutes, then pulse briefly to bring it together again. Ça se rattrape; adding more cream will only make it loose.
- 3
Pass through sieve
Set a fine-mesh sieve over a chilled bowl. Work the chicken paste through in small portions with a firm flexible scraper, using short strokes rather than smearing the whole batch at once. Scrape the smooth purée from the underside of the sieve as you go and leave the final stringy fibers behind. What falls into the bowl should be pale, close, and entirely free of threads. The processor was the modern scaffolding; this sieving is the dish.
- 4
Fold in cream
Whisk a small amount of cold heavy cream in a narrow bowl until it falls from the whisk in soft folds and barely holds a rounded crest, then measure exactly 3 tablespoons after whipping. Fold one third into the sieved base to loosen it, followed by the remaining cream in two additions, turning the spatula broadly through the mixture. Stop as soon as no white streaks remain. The Crème de Volaille should hold soft spoon marks without feeling stiff; beating after the cream goes in knocks out the lightness the source worked to create.
- 5
Salt and serve
Only now fold in the fine salt, beginning cautiously if the chicken was seasoned when cooked. Taste from a chilled spoon, adjust once, and transfer the Crème de Volaille immediately to its cold serving dish, leaving the natural sweep of the spoon across the top. Serve at once with thin toasts of pain de mie or baguette. Keep any second portion refrigerated until needed and never leave the chicken cream at room temperature for more than 2 hours. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Use breast meat or the pale inner meat from a roast, completely cold and stripped of skin, fat, cartilage, and browned edges. Dark meat tastes good, but it makes a heavier, grayer spread and changes the preparation the source specifies.
- •A gently poached chicken breast gives the palest result, but carefully cooked leftover roast chicken works if you trim it well. Technique first, always; expensive poultry cannot rescue a warm, greasy purée.
- •Do not skip the sieve. A processor makes the home version practical, but its blades leave tiny fibers that the tamis was meant to catch. Pressing and scraping take several minutes, and those minutes are the difference between chopped chicken and cream.
- •Serve on thin baguette toasts or pain de mie toasted until crisp but barely colored. A dry Champagne, Crémant, or mineral white Burgundy suits the cool richness without crowding it.
- •The finished cream loses some lift as it waits. Cover leftovers closely, refrigerate them, and use them within a day; fold once gently before serving, but do not beat them.
Advance Preparation
- •Up to one day ahead, cook and chill the chicken, remove every trace of skin and darkened surface, and weigh all the components. Keep the chicken and cream refrigerated.
- •Set the butter out about 20 minutes before mixing so it becomes pliable without turning oily. Chill the sieve, receiving bowl, and serving dish while it softens.
- •Do not assemble or salt the Crème de Volaille ahead. For a dinner party, have every component measured and the toasts ready, then purée, sieve, fold, and season during the final 25 minutes before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 55g)
Calories
195 calories
Total Fat
18 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
6 g
Cholesterol
70 mg
Sodium
170 mg
Total Carbohydrates
0 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
0 g
Protein
9 g
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