Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream
Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignons [Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream] from Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Frontmatter: This is an expansion of Julia, Simone, and Louisette’s master recipe for suprêmes, or chicken breasts. I keep saying “Julia says” because she became the face of this cookbook and I grew up watching her on TV, but Mastering the Art of French Cooking really was a team effort, so I’m trying to catch myself. So today it is not “Julia says,” it is the “Trois Gourmandes say.”
I’m hoping for a weeknight chicken dish that I can throw into a regular repertoire. Now, I have a particular allegiance to a chicken breast cooking method that has proven fool-proof to me, so I’m a bit reluctant to change my ways, but I do love a creamy mushroom sauce, and this cooks the both together, and is pretty fast, so if it turns out, into the rotation it shall go. But I’m wary of overcooking chicken breasts.
According to the Trois Gourmandes:
The suprême is an easy morsel to cook, but attention must be exercised to be sure it is not overdone, as even a minute too much can toughen the meat and make it dry. The flesh of a perfectly cooked suprême is white with the faintest pinky blush, its juices run clear yellow, and it is definitely juicy. Its point of doneness is easily determined as it cooks. Press the top of it with your finger; if it is still soft and yields slightly to the touch, it is not done yet. As soon as the flesh springs back with gentle resilience, it is ready. If there is no springiness, it is overcooked. (267)
That doesn’t inspire me with the greatest of confidence, so Imma use my internal meat thermometer, and try really hard to not overcook these suprêmes, but I’ll see if I can figure out their cook by touch method, and also try really hard to not Pull a Corbett, which is what I’ve started calling that thing where you forget that the meat thermometer that came out of your fucking oven is actually hot and burn the shit out of your fingers when you try to take it out. Also, like I’m using chicken breast from the store – I don’t know if it came from a 2 ½- 3-lb fryer. So I don’t know if these are the same size suprêmes as the ladies were getting in 1961, or if the recipe has been adjusted for the monster chickens we have now. I mean, I don’t buy monster chickens, but…. Look whatever, I’m using an internal meat thermometer and I’m going to cook the breast until it reaches…160. That’s my pull out of the oven temp. And so it shall be. I can’t abide overcooked chicken breast.
And I want to focus on learning the new-to-me recipe, so I’m serving with simple little boiled potatoes and broccoli or chard or peas to soak up the sauce. I’ll see what Luke wants when he gets home. (Broccoli, it turns out.)
Have you seen this ad for Cascade dishwashing liquid where the lady is like “You know that feeling of taking your dishes out of the dishwasher and they’re not clean yet?” and then the camera zooms in and she’s all holding up a dish and says “I don’t” and it’s really smug and annoying. Anyway, I’m getting that ad a lot on You Tube and I don’t much care for it.
Ok, here we go.
And I’m already confused.
Fuck.
So check it out.
Breast of Chicken with Cream (master recipe)
For 4 people (aka, 4 breasts)
4 suprêmes
½ tsp lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
Big pinch of white pepper
A heavy, covered, fireproof casserole about 10 inches in diameter
A round of waxed paper 10 inches in diameter and buttered on one side
4 Tb butter
For the sauce:
¼ cup white or brown stock
¼ cup port, Madeira, or dry white vermouth
1 cup whipping cream
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice as needed
2 Tb fresh minced parsley
Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream (a variation)
5 Tb butter
1 Tb minced shallot
¼ lb diced or sliced fresh mushrooms
1/8 tsp salt
4 suprêmes and the sauce ingredients in the master recipe
So dig: the mushroom and cream part is an expansion of the master recipe. So the mushroom part starts with 5 Tb butter, and the master recipe has 4 Tb of butter. And the instructions for the mushroom expansion have you cook the mushrooms and shallots in the 5 Tb of butter, then say “Following the master recipe, cook the suprêmes in the mushrooms and butter” (270). Then in the master recipe, which has 4 Tb of butter in it says “Heat the butter in the casserole until it is foaming. Quickly roll the suprêmes in the butter” (268).
Is it the same butter, or do I need to add another 4 Tb of butter in when I add in the chicken breasts and roll them in the new butter. Or is it like the 4 Tb of butter you were gonna use, but you need 1 Tb more because you’re cooking mushrooms in it as well. That’s what I’m going with because it just seems like 9 Tb of butter is a lot. But like “that seems like a lot of butter” is kinda the subtitle of the book.
Wait, when it says “the sauce ingredients in the master recipe” does it mean I’m not using the other ingredients in the master recipe besides the sauce? So does that mean ignore the 4 Tb of butter in it and like the lemon juice in there too?? Ladies, Trois Gourmandes I’m talking to you? One of these days that’s going to work. But today, still they are silent. Simca? Julia?
Ok, Internet?
Cool, the internet is answering.
These guys use 10 freaking Tb of butter to make this: but they’re also doubling the sauce it looks like (double the mushrooms, cream, stock, wine, etc.). Still using lemon juice.
These guys go with the 5 Tb and are still using lemon juice.
Here’s another vote for 5 Tb and still using lemon juice.
And another and still using lemon juice.
OK, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’ll use the 5 Tb, and I’ll see how the mushrooms look after I cook them in 5 Tb of butter. And I’ll keep a few Tb of soft butter on hand and whirl them into the sauce if it seems dry after I take the chicken out of the oven. Seems like an idea. And I’ll use the lemon juice.
Then there’s this deal with the buttered round of waxed paper. I’ll do it this time, but, I mean… You’re still putting a cover on the pan, so what is the point of the waxed paper? Is it so no condensation that drips off of the lid falls on the chicken? But like why would that matter since you’re not dealing with a crispy browned skin or anything. If you’re putting a lid on the pan, why the waxed paper? Can anyone tell me why this is a step?
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2. Rub the suprêmes with drops of lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
3. Heat the butter (5 Tb) in the casserole over moderate heat until it is foaming. Stir in the minced shallots and saute a moment without browning. Then stir in the mushrooms and saute lightly for a minute or two without browning. Sprinkle with salt.
Sidebar: Yo I don’t know about the time, y’all. Julia says 6-8 minutes. I’m cooking in what she calls a casserole, which is what I call a braising dish. It is enameled cast iron and it has a lid. It took 24 minutes. That 7th picture where the chicken was definitely still raw was at 12 minute.
In the end, I still have no idea what the paper was for.
4. Quickly roll the suprêmes in the butter, lay the buttered paper over them, cover casserole and place in hot oven. After 6 minutes, press top of suprêmes with your finger. If still soft, return to oven for a moment or two. When the meat is springy to the touch it is done (I’m removing at 165 degrees). Remove the suprêmes to a warm platter and cover while making the sauce.
5. Pour the stock and wine into the casserole with the cooking butter (if there is any left, if not, add some more in now- I added one more Tb, but I don’t know that I needed to.) and boil down quickly over high heat until liquid is syrupy.
6. Stir in the cream and boil down again over high heat until cream has thickened slightly.
7. Off heat, taste carefully for seasoning and add drops of lemon juice to taste. Pour the sauce over the suprêmes, sprinkle with parsley, and serve at once.
Thoughts/ Impressions: The sauce was incredible, and the chicken breast tasted like chicken breast. It was fine, but not as juicy as the method I prefer, and I really don’t think that the chicken took up enough of the butter to warrant the method, so…. Next time I’m going to cook the breast the way I like, and meanwhile make a mushroom cream sauce. I used a tawny port, and some specialty mushrooms I got from a local mushroom farm based on their recommendation, and they were really incredible together. (Shout out to Black Forest Mushrooms.) The mushrooms were on the nutty side, and that worked really well with the sweeter port in the sauce. The sauce was the star in this dish, but was on the rich side. We kept the rest of the meal light with some boiled creamer potatoes and steamed broccoli.
Luke has a traumatic childhood memory of canned cream of mushroom soup, and was pretty wary when I said I was making a mushroom cream sauce, something he would never order himself. (Can you see the trauma? Maybe he transferred it to Water-LooLoo.) But even he said the mushroom sauce was pretty good, and that’s about as good as it gets. Cat got none.
Leftover chicken heated up nicely, but I would recommend storing leftover sauce separately so it can be gently (very very gently) reheated on the stovetop to try to keep it from breaking.
Citation
Child, Julia, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. Mastering the Art of French Cooking. 1961. 40th Anniversary ed., Knopf, 2009.