Julia Child’s Big Dinner for a Little Man

This is Chicken Marengo! Napoleon’s favorite meal… well, this is Julia Child’s favorite version of this dish. You can find this recipe in The Way to Cook cookbook as well as her episode of her TV show: Napoleon’s Chicken.

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Photo credit:
Bataille de Marengo by Louis-François, Baron Lejeune File:Lejeune – Bataille de Marengo.jpg
:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lejeune_-_Bataille_de_Marengo.jpg

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Ingredients:

Julia Child’s Napoleon’s Chicken

Chicken: 1
Dry white wine: ¼ cup
Olive oil: 4 tablespoons
Medium-sized Onions: 2 (diced)
Brandy, or preferably Napoleon’s Cognac: 1 tablespoon
Garlic: 2 cloves (crushes)
Tomatoes: 2 lbs (seeded, peeled, cored and diced)
Italian Seasoning: 1 teaspoon
White Mushrooms: 8 large (caps with stems)
Extra virgin olive oil: 1 tablespoon
Dry white wine (once again): ½ cup
Shrimp: 12 large ones (shelled and deveined)
Sliced Italian Bread: 8 rounds (each slice should be ¼ inch thick)
Eggs: 4
Parsley: 1 teaspoon (freshly chopped)
Salt: According to your taste
Black pepper: According to your taste (freshly ground)
Black olives

Whoa whoa what the hell is happening right now digging into the history books today well with a Julia Child twist B hello and welcome back everyone this is my home it’s your home for a brief moment in time we’re going to be making what is called Napoleon’s chicken

And you’re GNA find this in the way to cook cookbook of course Julia Child’s magnumopus it’s called chicken Morango now this was Napoleon’s favorite dish well there’s a fable around the origin of this thing as Julia says Napoleon’s amusing and legendary dish created especially for him so they say

After the famous battle and the battle was Morango as the story goes after this fight he was feeling a bit peckish and his Chef whipped up chicken Morango with whatever ingredients they had available and voila here we have it well not exactly this this is Julia’s version of

One so the recipe here is detailed enough but also kind of vague and luckily Julia in her TV show features Napoleon’s chicken so as watching along to that and you know making notes comparing it to this thing here and they are kind of different at points so you

Might be asking yourself well why aren you following along to the French chef cookbook because that has all the recipes from her TV show right up until a certain point and then it just cuts off and the episode I was watching was uh well Julia was in color which means

That it was a relatively speaking a newer episode and it wouldn’t be featured in this book so what I’m trying to say is I’m going to take elements from this recipe here I’m going to take elements from the recipe that she was following in the TV show it’s going to

Be the best of both worlds are we on the same page here let’s get to work so I don’t I don’t think things need to get out of hand today providing you’re prepared for what you’re about to do you have all the ingredients ready for you by your side

Before you start cooking it’s going to go smoothly so we got a three lb chicken today I’m going to break it up into eight pieces separate the leg from the breast spine go away find where the ball joint is between the drumstick in the thigh and there it is cut through bada

Bing and then she says you can cut this ball joint tip off it’s the French way of doing it apparently any bony nubbing on your drumsticks those can go away too there we have it so the lower third of the breast and part of the wing where that ball joint

Is two drumsticks left and right side of the breast with the wings and a little more of the breast and the thighs say sa so white cap mushrooms take the biggest ones uh the mushrooms have all jeez okay well we hope right everyone’s okay we’re doing okay in here I’m just

Removing the stems from the mushrooms however many mushrooms this is I think it’s around 12 it’s probably four too many but it’s because I wanted some of these stems here going to chop the stems up into little pieces use a bigger knife if you want but this is what I’m using now she’s

Saying that you want to flute these mushroom caps with a sharp paring knife I’m kind of scraping down and rotating the mushroom and hopefully I have something at the end of this never done this before that is terrible this is just kind of like a aesthetic look to it for

Decoration to make them look a little more fancy everywhere I’ve looked says it’s a lot of practice to flute these mushroom caps cuz there’s a specific way of holding the knife and rotating it to make this kind of a spiral pattern so let’s try it out I’ll go a bit slower

And see what I get here is so freaking hard I rotate the knife and it should kind of yeah I suck at this fluted stuff you’re going to have to work on that and work on that until you get it right it’s not going to happen today and I don’t have enough

Musroom toy around with so we’re abandoning the fluting of the mushroom but it was like I was watching videos it’s like you hold the knife like that and you kind of something that would impress old Napoleon but at the end of the day this isn’t going to impress him so let’s

Abandon that and just keep our mushrooms looking smooth Julia uses the mushroom stems to go in with the recipe so that’s what I’m going to use these failed attempts at so I should mention something because it was a big Omission in the cookbook that Julia doesn’t mention mushrooms for this dish any

Other recipe I can find including the one that Julia is using for her show she has the mushrooms seems like an important thing to include so I have around 2 lbs of tomatoes that I’m going to drop it into boiling water for about a minute I mean it is not tomato season

I fully realize that but these are the freshest Tomatoes I could find and honestly they didn’t look half bad cut the stems out peel these Tomatoes basically just come off yep slice them in half horizont constantly deced these things so you toss me the Sie thank you

Just kind of squeeze them out and it’s messy and it’s a nuisance but Julia says you know it’s going to look better and they’re kind of just unpleasant to have in your dish and you know we’re serving it for Napoleon as well he’s not going

To want the seeds but also if you just don’t care the way I don’t care then just leave a couple in and don’t tell anyone and she just roughly chops I was thinking you know since it’s not tomato seasoned maybe using a couple canned tomatoes would also help add a

Little flavor to this thing with the juice that comes in with them we’ll add to the sauce nicely and let’s just kind of do the same thing remove the seeds if you want I don’t want but I will just out of kindness and she says you can add a

Bunch of canned tomatoes if you’d like just not all canned tomatoes or the flavors is going to be too strong Julia has a very roughly chopped half an onion very interesting addition to this dish is shrimp and we keep it in the Shell I got six of

Them so I got a whole bunch of slices of baguette here that I will have off to the side with four eggs and I’m going to take a little bit of the baguette now dunk it into the tomatoes with my favorite pan it’s my brazer and I’m using this one because

I’m going to try to keep this as close to a one pot meal as possible I don’t think it is going to be one but as close as possible so 2 tbspoon of olive oil so olive oil is the oil of choice for this dish the Battle

Of Morango is in Italy probably has something to do with that chicken skinside down there you go there you go you know that is the perfect amount I think for today let’s just leave the wings out of this so the chicken leave them in there until they start Browning nicely on each

Side all right so many splashes of oil to the face and 10 minutes later uh this chicken looks fantastic 1/4 cup of white vermouth and it goes or white wine whatever you got on hand cover that cook just like this for 10 minutes after 10 minutes in goes around

A tablespoon of conac and a little for good luck and light it up I know you can’t see the flame but it’s there after a very disappointing yet effective Lambe half a cup of very roughly diced onions point with the onions is not to brown them but just to

Soften so this is going to take another 10 minutes or so so leaving it with the lid off this time after another 10 I’m going to remove the chicken so if you want to degrease the pan now is the time to do it it’s optional but since I added

Way too much olive oil to begin with I’m going to exercise the option so our roughly chopped mushroom stems and failed fluted mushrooms two garlic cloves crushed into smiing you know what I said two but I’m going to make it three I’m not driving usually say that

With the bay leaves right but the garlic works too a half a cup of dry white wine more wine yes like I said the Battle of Morango happened in Italy Julia recommends Italian seasoning around a teaspoon worth this is just my thought here but I’m going to cook the wine down

Just a bit before I do anything more all those Tomatoes is like what 2 and 1/2 lbs in the end all the stuck on chicken bits and the Fawn scrape up the Fawn while you’re simmering turn the heat back down to medium and the chicken goes

In it’s due time to salt pepper I’m feeling a bit frisky with the Italian seasoning so a little more of that too the tomatoes need to exude their juices cover it 15 20 minutes but since this is a cooking show I’m going to shuffle this over to this

Burner that’s because I got more work to do here saucepan here I think I’m going to add in I don’t know what the hell is going I think it’s half a cup of wine I’m just going to do I don’t know that and then in go the mushroom caps

And what the white wine does with that is keep these white while I cook them like so so after like 5 minutes you got to remove these you don’t want them to get like water logged soggy as Julia says you don’t want them to flatten like flattened umbrellas you I’m going to

Keep them up there in a turned off microwave but it’s like hot enough that it’s going to keep them warm small saucepan get that heat on I’m going to glug in around a cup worth of olive oil we’re about to do something pretty awesome this needs to be very hot but

Not to the point of smoking firstly I’m going to deep fry these rounds of baguette couple at a time I’m not really sure what I’m looking for here I think you’re just trying to fry them up I don’t know if you’re looking for specific color or anything

But I feel like this could be done a different way because cuz I don’t know how I’m supposed to Brown that if it’s not touching the metal all right I’m going to pull the operation on those but we do have other things to do with this oil I’m going to deep fry an

Egg whoo who the hell is happening right now this is what she said to do deep fry freaking egg okay well that’s what I’m doing Julia is deep frying an egg so I’m doing one egg at a time and it’s about a minute in total flip it over you top heavy

Bugger okay I got to get you out it’s been more than a minute we got to get you out do you not have a slotted spoon where’s your slotted get it next time okay all my experiments are going to go on the baking sheet lined with paper towel Julia experiments with different

Ways of adding the eggs into the oil so we’ll just do the same here’s a second egg This is the strangest thing guys flip it over if you can I don’t know it pops up it gets all bubbly whoa remove the egg Julia prior to today I had no idea this was even a thing we’re not done with the olive oil just

Yet Ino the shrimp do a couple at a time I’m frying these 1 to 2 minutes until they start to curl up here they go changing their color it’s probably okay to add all the shrimp four in there six in total let’s do this like 30 seconds to a minute per

Side you be the boss onto the paper towel that can go off the heat all these great things going on right here with the eggs and the shrimp I’m going to keep these warm on the lowest setting in the oven just want to keep them warm okay so

I do know I was trying to limit the amount of pans I was using for this just going to get some oil from the deep frying and into the pan and a little more please I’d love to Brown These bagette rounds the right Way that’s better I’m going to get those into the oven with everything else realizing how stupid it is to have paper towel in the oven so I going to turn the oven off well everything has been happening I’ve been keeping an eye on this how does it Taste a couple more Hoots of salt I mean obviously the number one question would be is the chicken cook through of course it is the amount of time this was sitting on the heat while I was doing all those other things feels super tender and perfect so I wouldn’t change

A damn thing that’s hot this is what I’m thinking let’s remove everything in the oven with everything else keep it warm because I think this is the most ideal way to serve this thing based on the tools I have in this kitchen let me wash this out a that’s

A place the chicken in there nicely skin side up cool and remove random random bones sticking out of the chicken place the tomato sauce over top black olives go on top oh yeah okay this is starting to look interesting everything’s been keeping warm between each piece of chicken goes a bread

Round dab these deep fry eggs and place one on every other bread round does that work does the math work not really but uh make it look like you’re placing one on every other round the shrimp go on to each round that isn’t covered with an egg even if one

Doesn’t have an egg okay this is kind of a lone wol this one can share a crouton yeah room for another shrimp I’m going to throw that in the center lastly the mushroom caps and then those can be strategically placed around Cho parsley on top of each egg just for a pop of

Color order Up We’re going to start off with a little bit of everything in one Bite whoa It’s one juicy looking thigh right there M you have to discover each little corner of the plate here there’s a lot going On H makes you stop and think that was awesome and as many things as was going on with that plate of food can’t pick apart one thing okay maybe one thing I could have eased up on the simmering of the tomatoes and their juices yeah I could

Have used a little more of that all right can I be honest with you for just one minute about olives obviously those are camata olives she tells me to use the KN swap s olives the black olives uh I couldn’t find them while I was out so

I was like you know what I’ll just stick with the calamada it’s close enough for today’s purposes honestly they were great the tasty sauteed chicken still juicy and tender all of it including the white meat that even surprised me but all of it was initially and I was

Looking at this photo the eggs and the shrimp you know I thought they were going to be some odd choices on the plate but I thought those were some of the standouts obviously the hints of olive oil running through the whole thing too you know it’s a ballsy move

This day and age deep frying something in olive oil in this economy the flavors going on with that tomato sauce is sweet and tangy just to cap it all off she says here it’s quite a marvelous combination and I couldn’t agree more Napoleon that dish has got it going on

This was Jamie and Julia bone Appetit or