Chicken Marengo is a French and Italian dish consisting of a

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

sautéed in

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

with garlic and

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

, garnished with

fried egg A fried egg, also known as sunny-side up is a cooked dish made from one or more eggs which are removed from their shells and placed into a frying pan and fried. They are traditionally eaten for breakfast in many countries but may also be ser ...

s and crayfish.Raymond Sokolov, ''The Cook's Canon: 101 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know'', HarperCollins, 2003, p. 122. The dish is similar to chicken à la Provençale, but with the addition of egg and crayfish, which are traditional to chicken Marengo but are now often omitted. The original dish was named to celebrate the

Battle of Marengo The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. Near the end of the day, the French overcame General Mich ...

, a Napoleonic victory of June 1800.

History

According to a popular myth, the dish was first made after

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

defeated the Austrian army at the

at Marengo south of Alessandria, Italy, when his chef Dunand foraged in the town for ingredients (because the

supply wagon In military contexts, a train is the military logistics, logistical transport elements accompanying a military force. Often called a supply train or baggage train, it has the job of providing materiel for their associated combat forces when in th ...

s were too distant) and created the dish from what he could gather.Steven Gilbar, ''Chicken a la King and the Buffalo Wing: Food Names and the People and Places That Inspired Them'' (2008), p. 29-30. According to this legend, Napoleon enjoyed the dish so much he had it served to him after every battle, and when Dunand was later better-supplied and substituted

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

s for crayfish and added

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

to the recipe, Napoleon refused to accept it, believing that a change would bring him bad luck. This colorful story, however, is probably myth; Alan Davidson writes that there would have been no access to

es at that time, and the first published recipe for the dish omits them. The more plausible explanation for the origin of the dish is that it was created by a restaurant chef to honor Napoleon's victory.

Recipe

Pellegrino Artusi's recipe in his ''Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well'' is as follows (it lacks tomatoes, crayfish and eggs): :Take a young chicken, remove the neck and legs, and cut into large pieces at the joints. Sauté in 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condimen ...

and one

tablespoon A tablespoon (tbsp. , Tbsp. , Tb. , or T.) is a large spoon. In many English-speaking regions, the term now refers to a large spoon used for serving; however, in some regions, it is the largest type of spoon used for eating. By extension, the ter ...

of olive oil, seasoning with

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

, and a dash of

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

. When the pieces have browned on both sides, skim the fat and add a level tablespoon of flour and a

deciliter The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3) ...

(about 3 ½

fluid ounce A fluid ounce (abbreviated fl oz, fl. oz. or oz. fl., old forms ℥, fl ℥, f℥, ƒ ℥) is a unit of volume (also called ''capacity'') typically used for measuring liquids. The British Imperial, the United States customary, and the United ...

s) of

. Add

broth Broth, also known as bouillon (), is a savory liquid made of water in which meat, fish or vegetables have been simmered for a short period of time. It can be eaten alone, but it is most commonly used to prepare other dishes, such as soups, ...

and cover, cooking over low heat until done. Before removing from the fire, garnish with a pinch of chopped parsley; arrange on a serving dish and squeeze half a

lemon The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...

over it. The result is an appetizing dish.Pellegrino Artusi, ''Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well'' (University of Toronto Press trans.). p. 20

/ref>

Notes

{{Chicken dishes, state=collapsed Italian chicken dishes French chicken dishes

History

Recipe

See also

Notes