The French Chef (1962–1973): Season 1, Episode 8 - To Roast a Chicken - full transcript

ANNOUNCER: The French Chef is made possible by a grant

from Safeway Stores.

JULIA: Here is our dear little old friend the chicken.

Today, we're just interested in the breast.

We're gonna bone it and skin it,

and serve it as a very tasty morsel.

A supremes de volaille.

Today, on The French Chef.

Welcome to The French Chef.
I'm Julia Child.

Today, we're going to do breast of chicken

in the French manner, which means, it's a peel--



It's a skinless, boneless,

luscious, delicate morsel

of white meat, which cooks in about six to eight minutes

and makes a perfectly elegant, quick meal.

And with it, we're going to serve risotto, or braised rice.

And as that cooks fairly quickly,

I'm gonna start that first,

and then we'll get back to our chicken.

Now, risotto is, of course, of Italian origin in name,

but this is the way the French cook braised rice,

and they call it risotto.

And whenever they take over a recipe,

they do it in their own way,

and they don't care how anyone else does it.



And this, you use a-a long grain rice.

And when you buy rice, you just look on the box

or the package, and it always says

long grain or fancy long grain.

And it's perfectly plain, ordinary, raw white rice.

I think a lot of people are afraid to cook rice because

it gets sort of gummy, and that's mainly that nobody's

told them some of the basic principles of how to cook it.

And in risotto, the rice is cooked for a little while

in butter, and then simmered in seasoned liquid.

So, we're gonna start it out right now,

and we're gonna cook it on top of the stove.

And we're gonna put in about a tablespoon and a half of butter.

And then for flavoring, two tablespoons of

finely minced onion.

And that's gonna cook slowly, until the onion is translucent.

And then the rice is going to go in.

Now, in this method of cooking rice, you want to make

very sure that your measurements are correct.

And most of everybody knows about these dry measure cups.

You have a one cup and a half cup

and a third and a fourth.

And when the cup is full, up to the top,

that means it's a full cup.

And for this kind of a dish, you want to measure

very carefully, because it's important

how much liquid you use.

We're going to use one and a fourth cups of rice.

And one full cup of raw rice will cook up into three cups

of... of cooked rice.

And that's about enough for four people, which we're serving.

But I'm gonna add a little bit more 'cause it's so good.

So, we're gonna use a cup and a quarter.

And now you cook your onions until they're fairly tender.

They're gonna get cooking later.

And then, you pour in your rice. This is plain, unwashed rice.

Because you want it to be perfectly dry.

And the reason that you're gonna cook it in the butter

is to cook the floury coating on the rice,

because it's that floury coating

which you don't deal with it in some way,

which becomes gooey.

And in the braised rice, the cooking of it is what...

is what prevents it from becoming gummy

after it's cooked.

And when the rice first goes in, it has a milky look,

and then as soon as it gets turned in the butter,

the rice looks translucent.

And you want to cook it slowly,

until the grains have become milky again.

And that takes about two or three minutes

over moderate heat.

And the rice is not supposed to brown.

It just stays a white-- it'll be a white milky color

by the time it's done.

And while that's cooking, we have our liquid.

And you use whatever liquid you would be using

for your main course.

In this case, we're using chicken,

so this is canned chicken broth and water.

I'm using about half and half.

And in this, the proportions are very important.

You have-- If you have one cup of rice,

you use two cups of liquid.

So, in this case, we have one and a quarter cups of rice,

so we're using two and a half cups of liquid.

And pour it into a liquid measure.

And then you want to make sure that it's absolutely accurate.

So, set it on a flat place, and then get your eye

right down to that mark, which is two and a half there.

And then you'll know that you have the correct amount.

And then you keep looking at your rice

for a minute, until it turns that milky color,

which it hasn't quite.

So, we'll finish the rest of our flavorings.

We're going to use parsley and bay leaf,

and tie them together.

This is almost an herb bouquet.

If you had a complete herb bouquet, you'd have thyme,

which you could use, too.

And then you turn the parsley around the bay leaf,

and then just tie it with white string.

You use white string because it doesn't have any flavor.

In the cooking, if you use brown or black string,

maybe you'd get brown or black rice.

Now, we look again at our rice...

And those grains have practically become milky.

This is the only... only part in the cooking

that you'll have to watch fairly carefully.

Because once you've gotten this rice, this flour coating

cooked, then you're not gonna have any trouble

with the rice grains sticking together.

Now, there, that's cooked sufficiently.

And you can very easily see this yourself

when you're doing it.

You'll notice that milky color.

Then in goes our liquid.

And we just put our herb bouquet right in.

And we want this to come up to the boil.

And as soon as it's come up to the boil, we then cover it

and let it simmer slowly.

And at this point, it's a good idea to taste it.

Our... the chicken stock already has a little bit

of salt in it, but you want to have it just salty enough.

That can use just a little bit more salt.

And you can put in some pepper.

And if you want other flavoring...

Say, if you were having rice with fish,

you could use a fish stock.

If you didn't have a homemade stock, you could use

clam juice and water.

Or you could put a little bit of white wine in, if you like.

Or, if you wanted, you could use tomato juice.

And if you like garlic, at this point, you could just

squeeze a clove of garlic in, which is very nice.

And then as soon as that comes up to the simmer,

which it almost has, you cover it.

You can stir it at this point now, but once it's started

to simmer, and you cover it, you don't stir it at all

until the rice is done.

And it's gonna take 18 minutes.

Now, it's just coming up to the boil.

There, now I'm gonna set my timer for 18 minutes.

And this is to cook at a sort of slow boil

or fast simmer, because all the liquid is to be absorbed

by the time the rice is done.

And now, back to our chicken.

And we're going-- Because these take such

a short amount of time to cook, I'm going to--

I have some already ready-made ones,

which I'm gonna cook right away.

And then, I'll go back and show you how we bone them.

Now, this is what the boned breast looks like.

It's just-- Looks like a little...

lovely little piece of meat like that.

And in good French cooking, a supremes de volaille--

supremes, or supreme, means the daintiest

and loveliest part of the chicken--

is never boiled or poached.

It's always cooked in butter in a covered casserole.

Or else it is sautéed.

And you can put whatever flavorings you like in it,

such as mushrooms, but we do so many mushrooms,

I thought we'd do something else.

In this case, we're going to use vegetables.

We're gonna use celery and carrots,

and one or two mushrooms, an onion.

And it's all chopped up very fine.

And I'll show you how you chop up things quickly

into a dice.

Now, here's your carrot.

You see, if you tried to cut it into dice this way,

it rolls around.

So, you take your knife and cut a sliver off the side of it.

Like that.

And then the carrot will sit perfectly,

nicely on the board.

And then you cut long pieces, like that.

All the way down.

And that makes, you see, long pieces like that,

and then you take the individual pieces

and cut them into strips.

These are called julienne.

Then you gather the strips together

and cut them into dice, like that.

And I have some that has been already made.

And you first heat butter in your casserole.

We're gonna use about...

three tablespoons of butter.

And then we are gonna put in about...

about a cup of this vegetable mixture.

And that should cook slowly until the vegetables are tender,

about three or four minutes.

And then when the vegetables are tender

and the butter is thoroughly bubbling in the casserole,

you put your chicken breasts in.

Now, these have been already prepared and they've been...

they have salt and pepper and lemon juice on them.

These cook in about five or six minutes.

And that is why it makes such a lovely little meal.

And then as soon as your butter is good and hot and bubbling

and the vegetables have been cooked,

you simply take your chicken breasts and lay them in

and then roll them around

to get them thoroughly covered

with the butter and the vegetables.

And as they slowly cook--

I mean, they are gonna cook fast, excuse me--

they absorb all this delicious flavor.

You have to get them thoroughly covered there.

And then you put on some wax paper

because we don't want them to brown.

These are called pocher au blanc or unbrown.

You cover that with your wax paper

and then you put on the cover and it goes into the oven.

And this is gonna go into a 400 degree oven

and they're gonna cook five to six minutes.

It's amazing that they do cook so fast.

And now, we'll get back to how to arrive

at these lovely, delicate little morsels.

Now this comes...

here's your breast, here.

And I'll remove that part of that leg,

so you can see it better.

It's all this part in here.

And when you buy the chicken breast in a market,

it is either a single-breasted piece like this

or you get the double breast.

And sometimes it has the wing on and sometimes not,

but it usually always has the bones in.

You can ask your butcher to do it

or you can very easily do it yourself.

I recommend you learn how to work with meats yourself

because it's much... you get a much better idea

of what the meat is like.

And then to bone it, you simply take a sharp knife,

and there's your breastbone there

and these are the ribs here.

You start at the ridge of the breastbone

and just cut right down and remember always,

when you're boning something, you cut always against the bone,

not against the flesh.

And it's a sort of a cut and scrape business.

You see there's your breastbone

showing itself perfectly well.

And then you just cut and sort of scrape down

with your fingers.

And then, in the case you still have the wing left on,

when you get to where the wing joins the shoulder up here,

you just cut through the ball joint that attaches it.

This is one reason why it's good

to do the boning yourself.

When you start to carve, you're a much better carver

because you know where everything is.

And then there's your carcass.

See that's the edge of the breastbone there

and there are the ribs.

And then, you have your wing, which is still attached,

so you just cut right down through that.

Be sure that you have a sharp knife.

There's a little bit of the breastbone attached there,

so you just take that off.

And then you have your skin and that comes off very easily.

You just peel it, you see, it just comes right off.

And if it sticks a little bit, you use your knife.

You can peel a whole chicken just doing this.

And then you can save all of that skin, as well,

to make a chicken stock out of.

Now, you have your breast meat there

and you'll notice that there's two layers of it.

You see, there's this inner layer

and that's the layer that was connected to the bones.

And that, in French, is called the filet mignon.

And then you have this larger piece, which is the outside,

and that's called the filet.

And in the filet mignon, or the little piece,

you'll notice a little white tendon there.

And that part was attached to the wishbone

and it's tough and that you've got to get out

because otherwise it makes the breast curl up.

So, you just take your knife and cut along the side of it

and then when you get the end there,

you grip it with a towel or a paper towel,

or anything 'cause it's sort of slippery.

You have to get a good grip on it, and then,

cut down the side a little bit more with your knife.

You can see how it comes out there.

And then you've gotten rid of it.

You see it there?

Then you can, if you'd like,

you can take off this filet mignon part

and use it as a second serving.

Or you can leave it on, it depends.

Of course, it'll cook quicker

if you've taken the filet mignon off.

And then you trim the breast a little bit

to get off any rough edges like that.

And then you take a big knife

and you just flatten it a little bit.

And then you can get these ready a day ahead of time,

and then wrap them in wax paper and they are ready to cook

just as we saw at the beginning.

And now our chicken breast ought to be ready.

So, I'm gonna take a look in the oven.

Now, it's been just about five minutes;

remember, that oven was at 400.

Mmm. It always smells so good.

Now, you can tell when they're ready by poking them

with your finger.

And if it's resilient, they're done.

If it's still squashy, like the raw breast, it isn't done.

And if it's hard, it's overdone, which is too bad.

But you want to get them just at the point

when they're resilient.

And this finger test is something that is

very useful to know because you can tell when steak is done

by pushing it that way.

Remember what the raw stuff tastes like,

remember what an overdone taste feels like.

But just get used to using your finger

for all sorts of things.

And now, at this point, our rice should be done.

At least, we'll take a look at it.

Well, that isn't done yet.

You see the liquid is still there.

So, we're gonna make our sauce.

I'm gonna take the breasts out

and then we'll make the sauce for our chicken breasts.

So, I'll get a bigger spoon.

And we'll just put these on a plate.

And then all of these vegetables,

we keep and they go into the sauce.

I mean, they stay there, we make the sauce out of it.

As you're gonna see, this is a very quickly made sauce.

We're going to deglaze it using a little port wine.

You don't have to use wine if you don't like.

But I'm gonna put in about a quarter of a cup of port wine

there, and then, for a little more added flavor,

I'm gonna use some brown chicken stock

or you could use canned beef bouillon.

And I'm gonna put in about a quarter of a cup there.

And then that's to boil down very quickly.

And then you can add cream, if you'd like,

or you don't have to,

but I think I'm gonna go the whole hog

on this so that we will have some cream.

And that is thickened with cornstarch.

And we're gonna have-- Let's see, we have

five breasts here, so we would like to have about...

almost a half a cup of sauce per breast.

So that we want about...

I'll say we'll have about two cups.

And so we want the sauce to be just thick enough

so it will adhere to the breasts.

So, I'm gonna put in about two tablespoons of cornstarch

and then mix it up with the cream.

You want to mix this all up so that there are no lumps in it.

I'm using heavy cream here.

When we do veal scallops later on,

we're going to make a brown tarragon sauce,

which has no cream in it.

But the cream is such a French type of sauce,

I wanted you to see how we did that.

Now, before we add the cream, we want this to boil down.

You see, it's now, it's a little bit too liquid.

Take another look at our rice.

Now, I want you to look here.

You see, the reason you don't stir the rice at all

while it's cooking, if you'll notice,

there are those little holes there.

They look like clam holes in the sand.

But you can still see that there's a little bit of liquid

exuding through those holes, so the rice isn't done yet.

So we cover it and let it cook some more.

Now, this is boiling down.

What you want to do on a sauce like this,

you want it to boil down until it gets a little bit syrupy.

And that is a little bit syrupy now, so we take it off the heat,

and we put our cornstarch mixture in...

...and stir it up to blend.

And then put it back on the heat to let it cook

for a few more minutes.

And it should-- see, that's gotten a little bit...

a little thick now, so we thin it out

with a little bit more cream, or you can use a little bouillon.

But this has to cook for a minute or two

to cook the cornstarch.

You want to be careful at this time that...

that you don't let the sauce scorch in the bottom of the pan.

And now we want to taste it.

[timer rings]

That noise was for our rice,

though we just looked at it, and it isn't quite ready.

Now, it needs a little bit of salt in it.

And some pepper.

And then whenever you're using a sauce with cream,

you may find that you need a little lemon juice in.

In this case, it doesn't seem to need it.

And that's still a little bit thick, so I'm gonna put in

a little more bouillon.

And then I think we're about ready to serve it.

You see, that's awfully quickly made,

and it makes a simply delicious dish.

Now, we're ready to serve.

Now, the rice... [clears throat]

...is here.

You see, there are those little clam holes.

And then to make sure that it's done,

you lift up an edge and tilt the pan.

And if there's no liquid there, that means that you can stir it.

And then you taste it to make sure that it has enough

salt and pepper in.

Very good.

It's really one of the nicest ways of making rice,

and you can see, it isn't difficult at all.

Now, I'll get rid of the herb bouquet.

And then we put our rice on the platter.

And then, on go the chicken breasts.

And see, these chicken breasts still have

some of those vegetables on.

And then the sauce with vegetables

will go on top of that.

And our sauce is all done.

Now, with these chicken breasts done this way, you really wan--

They should be served just immediately, they're cooked.

After you take them out of the oven,

you'd put... you'd put a plate over them to keep them warm,

and then your sauce really takes only about two minutes.

And then put around a little bit of parsley,

and you just have a lovely meal.

I'll just put a bit of parsley right in the middle there.

Parsley is certainly one of the most useful,

decorative things we have.

And it keeps awfully well if you just wash it off

and then keep it in a little jar in the refrigerator,

or in a covered bag.

There.

Now, that really is an elegant meal

in just a very, very few minutes.

And we're serving this

with hot French bread,

and with rice braised in stock.

Next time, we're gonna do this, and it's--

I mean spinach braised in stock, which is perfectly delicious.

And with it, we're serving a chilled white burgundy wine.

Or you can, if you'd like, serve a rosé,

or a chilled white grave.

Now, this chicken that we used was a three-pound fryer.

And make sure when you buy your chicken breasts,

that you get very good quality, because anything that's gonna

cook in six minutes has to be excellent quality

and tender to begin with.

It's really our fault as consumers if we have

stringy chickens, because sometimes we're more interested

in price than in quality.

I got this chicken at a place that specializes in chicken,

and they have perfectly beautiful beasts, or birds.

But you sometimes will find that the white meat of chicken

is stringy, and if that's so, it's because it's probably

been killed and then chilled too quickly.

But if you have a bad piece of chicken,

take it back to your market and complain,

and get all your friends to complain.

That's the only way of getting good chicken.

Now, with the rice, as you... I think you understood

how we did that, and it is delicious with it.

And next time, we're gonna do vegetables the French way,

including this lovely spinach.

So, that's all for today on The French Chef.

This is Julia Child. Bon appétit.

ANNOUNCER: Julia Child is
coauthor of the book,

Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

The French Chef is made
possible by a grant

from Safeway Stores.