Let me start off by reminding you that I've always said I don't have very good skills when it comes to photographing the things I've cooked. I will also add to that another observation i can make regarding my talents: My plating skills are probably much worse than my photographic skills. After taking this picture I do realize that the sauce I poured over the top of the chicken looks like barf (sorry, best word I could think of using here). I'm really sorry about that because it tasted realllllllly reallllllly good. I'm open for pointers on what to do with these wonderful sauces as I finish these dishes to do them justice. There must be a proper way to pour the sauce on that will look more attractive. Lucky for me, my family didn't pay much attention to the presentation and simply enjoyed eating this delicious preparation of Supremes de Volaille a l'Ecossaise (Chicken Breasts with Diced Aromatic Vegetables and Cream).
After my recent experience preparing Supremes de Volaille Archiduc I was really excited to make another one of these types of chicken dishes. All in all the preparation of these dishes is quite simple and I find making the sauce at the end is fun, fast, easy and makes a very tasty sauce. The word "tasty" doesn't do this sauce justice. This is more of a use a piece of bread to sop it up and then lick your plate clean so you don't miss a drop of the sauce type of tasty.
This was a variation of the Archiduc version I made a little while ago. I started off with my trusty knife and evenly diced a white onion, a medium carrot, and two celery stocks into small segments. Time for a confession to Julia. Julia, you told me I was supposed to "cut the vegetables into neat little 1/16" cubes." Really??? Was 1/16" bigger when you were writing "Mastering the Art of French Cooking?" I have trouble seeing 1/16" much less holding itty bitty pieces of vegetables to be cut that small. For the record, I tried, but I ended up settling for neat little cubes that were closer to 1/8". These were then added to a skillet with 5 tablespoons of butter and about 1/8 tablespoon of salt. Everything was then covered and cooked slowly over a low heat for about 10 minutes. After that, the heat was turned up a bit, the chicken was added and cooked covered until the chicken was done.
Then the real fun began! The chicken was removed from the pan and then a quarter cup of white grape juice and a quarter cup of beef both were poured into the still hot pan together. The juice and broth were brought quickly to a boil and the liquid reduced using high heat until the juice had turned into an almost syrupy consistence. As soon as that point was reached, a cup or so of cream was added and brought to a boil, stirring constantly, as the sauce thickened. I'm still amazed at how quickly this all turns into such a tasty sauce. Stirring constantly over a high heat, the liquid thickened into a really nice creamy sauce in just about 2 minutes.
The picture below shows the finished sauce before I poured it on the chicken, doesn't it look good? Definitely better than it appears in the photo of the finished product with it poured on the chicken. I hope you can see past the photo and trust me on this that this is a great way to enjoy chicken. Considering that all this was prepared while dealing with my previously described cream boil overs with nice white smoke, I think this turned out alright. Definitely one to add to the make again list and certainly a fun sauce to make. Try it, you'll like it!
Bon Appetit!
Might not look appetizing but did taste wonderful. Your Photography skills are improving.
For presentation you could: 1. put the sauce on the plate and place the chicken pieces on top of it. 2. You could put the sauce in a small bowl on the side, smaller than a salad bowl, for the diner to apply as much sauce as desired. 3. You could do the same as in the picture but add sprigs of fresh parsley in an attractive pattern around the sauced chicken. All this depends on whether what the picture shows is a serving platter or an individual diner's plate.