***WARNING: If you make this dish, you may be tempted to lick the remaining sauce from the pan! The mushroom and cream sauce that smothers the chicken breasts in this recipe is so divine. I found this in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I. She never fails to impress me (as you can probably tell from the numerous Julia recipes I've been blogging about lately!)Just think...cream, mushrooms and butter...Mmm....sauces don't get much better than that, folks! It's creamy, luxurious and satisfying...all at the same time.
Furthermore, the way that the chicken breasts are prepared produces incredibly tender and moist chicken. Because I used my Le Creuset dutch oven, I did not follow Julia's suggestion of covering the chicken with a piece of buttered wax paper (gasp!). I simply covered the dutch oven with the heavy lid and popped it into the oven. The results were fantastic!
I served this chicken with asparagus...perfection! Brad and I both are looking forward to having this dish again!***
Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons
(Chicken Breasts with Mushroom and Cream)
Source: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck (Knopf, 1961)
Ingredients:
4 supremes (boneless, skinless chicken breasts)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
Big pinch white pepper
5 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon minced shallot or green onion
1/4 pound diced or sliced fresh mushrooms
1/8 teaspoon salt
For the sauce:
1/4 cup white or brown stock or canned beef bouillon
1/4 cup port, Madeira or dry white vermouth
1 cup whipping cream
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons freshly minced parsley
Directions:Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Rub the chicken breasts with drops of lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Heat the butter in a heavy, oven-proof casserole, about 10 inches in diameter until it is foaming. Stir in the minced shallots or green onion and saute a moment without browning. Then stir in the mushrooms and saute lightly for a minute or two without browning. Sprinkle with salt.
Quickly roll the chicken in the butter mixture and lay a piece of buttered wax paper over them, cover casserole and place in hot oven. After 6 minutes, press top of chicken 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. (Please Note: Although Julia suggests to check the chicken after only 6 minutes, I (as well as several of my readers!) feel that this amount of time is inadequate to thoroughly cook the chicken. I cooked it for closer to 30-40 minutes. Please use a meat thermometer to ensure the correct temperature before serving!)
Remove the chicken to a warm platter (leave mushrooms in the pot) and cover while making the sauce (2 to 3 minutes).
To make sauce, pour the stock and wine in the casserole with the cooking butter and mushrooms. Boil down quickly over high heat until liquid is syrupy. Stir in the cream and boil down again over high heat until cream has thickened slightly. Off heat, taste for seasoning, and add drops of lemon juice to taste. Pour the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately.
Serves 4.
Source: “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I” by Julia Child (Knopf, 1961)
Comments
Cheers,
Rosa
www.deharinaydemaiz.com
THanks
Invested in both volumes of Julia's books, after seeing the movie. I made this tonight with port - YUM - and heavy whipping cream - YUM - as Julia recommends. Plain old white mushrooms. The chicken breasts were rather large and thick and were in the oven for 35-40 minutes and were done perfectly and very moist. I'm thinking Julia's were much thinner, thus the six minutes or so. I doubt she ate raw chicken!! The port made the sauce a lovely color! And the taste - oh my! What can I say??? Served over linguini. Oh my ----
Thank you for your blog!! It is now on my toolbar Celeste!!
Stacey
When I made this, it was a Sunday so I was unable to buy wine. We had some beaujolais at home and it worked fine.
Stacey
I recently made this recipe and LOVED it.
http://channelingjulia.blogspot.com/2010/07/supemes-de-volaille-aux-champignons.html
I'm currently working my way through "Mastering" and blogging about it. Gee. Has that been done before?
Cheers!
I just thought I would add a comment about the chicken, considering that I've been researching the heck out of the recipe. The reason that the recipe states the cook time as only 6 minutes is because Julia used chicken breast cutlets, instead of an entire chicken bread half like we normally think of and use. But, I'm glad that you told us the cooking time for an entire chicken breast half. :-)
I hope this helps to clear up any confusion!
Anonymous - The recommended cooking time for a boneless chicken breast varies anywhere from 25 - 45 minutes, depending mostly on the size of the chicken breast, and if it's boneless or bone-in.
Please note - Julia's original recipe was based on chicken cutlets, which cook MUCH faster than chicken breasts. Boneless chicken breasts must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees F to be considered safe. Salmonella poisoning is no fun!
Maggie - If you're going to make this dish ahead of time, I would probably get all of the chicken to the point where it's cooked through, but then wait to actually add the cream/make the sauce on the day you plan to serve it. My only hesitation is whether or not the cream sauce would start to separate if made too early. This dish should be a huge hit at your party! :)
Anonymous - Yes, the butter is heated on a stove top. A large dutch oven is the best kind of pot to use for this recipe. If using a cast iron dutch oven, that will eliminate the need to cover the chicken with wax paper, because the heavy lid will hold in all the moisture while the chicken is cooking. The shallots and mushrooms are sauted in the butter on top of the stove. Next, the chicken breasts are added and cooked in the oven (using the same pot). The final step will be making the sauce on the stove top. I hope this helps! :)
For those of you who don't have a dutch oven, this is what I did:
Soaked chicken breasts in lemon juice for a few minutes (And seasoned while they were in there) while heating the butter in a skillet and cooking the green onion and mushroom. I added the chicken (and a tiny bit of the lemon juice), covered it and let it cook on medium high, flipping the chicken until cooked through and a nice golden brown.
I then removed the chicken and kept warm while making the sauce.
Again, so incredible. THANK YOU!
These are the changes I made: I pounded the chicken breasts a bit to make them cook faster (maybe 1/2 inch thick). I used a regular onion and some garlic to replace the shallots since I had them on hand. I also simmered it on the stove instead of baking it. Then when the chicken was just a touch under-cooked, I pulled them out and wrapped them tightly in a double-thick aluminum foil. By the time the sauce was finished, the chicken was perfectly cooked in the foil. I added some dried parsley into the sauce and finished the top with some chopped chives. Just amazing!!!
Is it possible to make this recipe in a crockpot? I'm concerned how the sauce would turn out...
Please advise! :)
What I did was I sauteed the first part in a wok, then put it over the chicken in a pot thing that desperately wishes was a dutch oven. Cooked for 30 minutes at 400, and then took the chicken out and wrapped it tightly in foil. Poured the onion/mushroom/butter mixture BACK into the wok and followed the next steps.
Put the chicken back into the dutch oven-poser, poured the sauce in.
Side of steamed broccoli instead of asparagus. :)
I have cooked this twice now and the man LOVES it! And best of all, so do I!
Thanks,
Sarah
Was very good, did use breasts n cooked about 30 mins. Would pound chicken next time.
I recently wanted to do something new for some guests that I was having over, and I made the sauce (with the scallions and mushrooms included) and poured them over sliced potatoes and onions that I had baked. I broiled the mixture for just under 5 minutes on high and created some "scalloped" potatoes that are now famous in my household! Mmmm!
I will be sharing your recipe page on my blog. Thanks!
As for 6 minute cooked chicken - back in the day, chicken had to be boned by the cook or requested to be done at a butcher.
Most woman (my grandma) pounded the chicken thin for a quicker and juicer chicken. Woman/Cooks were not spoiled like we are today with high end ovens and stoves.
I followed the recipe exactly (chose port and beef stock for sauce, and cooked chicken for about 30 minutes) and it was absolutely divine! I'll be making this again many times! The sauce thickened to the perfect consistency and as soon as I tasted it I was actually surprised at just how amazing the flavour was! I paired it with a simple mushroom risotto and asparagus - thanks again
Vis a vis the cooking time, keep in mind when Julia was cooking and writing....chicken breasts then were a lot smaller than they are now, probably 100-120 grams; these days some of the breasts I buy are as big as a kitten!
Cheers.
Jason
Pam