The Stewpot Recipe Gallery

Chicken Cominée

(Le Menagier de Paris 1393)

Cut it into pieces and put it to cook in water and a little wine, then fry in fat, then take a little bread, moisten in your stock, and first take ginger and cumin, mixed with verjuice, grind and sift and put all together with meat or chicken stock, and then add color with saffron or eggs or egg-yolks strained and poured from above into the soup after it has been removed from the fire, Item, the best way is use milk as I said before, then grind your bread after your spices, but you must boil the milk first so that it does not curdle; and when the soup is done, the milk should be added to wine, though I see no reason for this, and fried, Some do not fry it, but it is said to be better fried.  

Ingredients:

1 quart water (more or less as appropriate)
1 cup white wine
2 lbs. chicken breast strips
about 2 Tbs. olive oil
3/4 cup verjuice
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1 Tbs. ground ginger
1 Tbs. ground cumin

Preparation Steps

Poach the chicken pieces in the water and wine until cooked through.  Remove from liquid, and brown in olive oil in a frying pan.  Take 1 1/2 cups of the cooking liquid, and add salt to taste if desired. Add the verjuice, and spices.  Beat the egg and egg yolks together.  Remove the stock from the stove, and blend some of it into the egg mixture, mixing well.  Add more stock to the eggs, again stirring well.  Blend the egg mixture into the remainder of the stock, stirring rapidly as it is added.  Return to heat, and cook over low heat until mixture begins to thicken slightly.  Add chicken, and cook until thickened and chicken is heated through.  Serve it forth.

Yield

About 16 servings for a feast with other meat dishes.

Redaction Notes

The translators of the original manuscript wrote:

Bread is a thickening, and he says after that eggs are another thickening, and one or the other is enough, as he said in the section on 'cretonnee'.

Verjuice and wine:  If you want to make soup with milk, you do not need wine or verjuice.)