When I was kid, my dad cooked this chicken, mushroom and tomato dish, tarted up with seafood and eggs. While cooking, he'd tell me stories about Napoleon's beloved horse named after his victory at the Battle of Marengo in 1800. I'd nod, look at the picture of the famous painting by Jacques-Louis David, but generally keep my eye on the pan...
This dish has a questionable history. Supposedly, it was invented for Napoleon on the site of his victorious battle in 1800, by his chef Dunand or Dunant (who apparently didn't warrant a first name) from foraged ingredients to hand during one of Bonaparte's many campaigns.
Subsequent commentators have questioned if its ingredient would even have been readily available given Marengo's location. Whether it is or isn't a piece of culinary propaganda, a dish retrospectively created in the refined kitchens of Paris in honour of the "little Corsican corporal", remains open to debate.
Let's face it: David always did good hair; man or beast
Personally, I don't care. One of those dishes that was considered "classy" on upmarket menus in the 1970s (yes, don't ask my age) I retain a soft spot for it, least of all for its cameo appearance on the hit TV series 'Frasier' in what I could only say would have been a unique iteration.
At its heart, the "original" versions (don't even mention the pale facsimiles of chicken à la Provençale that leave out the eggs and seafood) are protein-priority versions of fairly traditional Italian cooking. That's probably why I love it so much.
This recipe serves 2 to 3 adults. Scale up or down as needed. I'm doing it here with the healthier, skinless, deboned thighs... only because that's what I had in. I usually do it with whole legs/thighs with the skin on and bones in. And, of course, it's the ideal dish for carb-haters. Just tell them to leave the bread for those who want it.
Shopping list
1 chicken whole leg or two boneless thigh joints per diner
2 tspns of smoked garlic, purée
I large white or brown onion, cubed
1 tin (400g) peeled Italian plum tomatoes
Closed-cup chestnut mushrooms, 250g; thickly sliced
1 tbspn dried oregano
A medium pointed sweet or bell orange pepper, cubed
A generous clutch of fresh tarragon
1 glass of white wine
Seafood - the ideal culprits are langoustine, crawfish or Atlantic red shrimp, still in their shells. About a handful per diner; fresh or defrosted. If you can get them, apparently freshwater crayfish are the "real thing", according to some food historians. Seems that Napoleon's loving troops were so filled with bromance, they went off to find them in local streams for Bonaparte. If fresh, boil them first i.e. they should be less half-baked than this questionable tale
1 egg per diner
4 to 5 tbspns extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
A thick "wedge" of unsalted butter, approx. 0.75 tbspn
The sides
rustic bread, sliced or roughly broken
Green beans, mange tout or sugar snap peas; topped and tailed; steamed/boiled
2 thick spring onions, thinly sliced
3 tbspns small capers, finely chopped
Olive oil and seasoning to flavour
Cooking Method
Heat the olive oil in a large, wide and relatively deep pan with a lid
Add the onions and sweat. Add the smoked garlic purée and stir in before the onions brown. Add the lid and sweat for 4 or 5 mins, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking
Add the chicken and seal it; cook for a few minutes on each side, adding a little more oil if needed. Throw in the fresh tarragon
Add the cubed pepper, still cooking on a relatively high heat and stirring. When the pepper begins to soften, add the mushrooms and cover. Sweat the ingredients for a while, stirring to prevent sticking (it may generate liquid making this unnecessary)
Sprinkle the oregano around the whole pan. Pour in the white wine and boil off on a high heat
Add the plum tomatoes and their juice around the edges, surrounding the chicken
Cook these ingredients on a relatively high heat for 5 to 6 min, turning the chicken occasionally. Cover, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for approx. 10 to 15 mins
Remove the cover, and sauté in the more regular manner, stirring reasonably frequently. In this dish, you are mainly looking to ensure the tomatoes and mushrooms are cooked fully and that the sauce thickens. The chicken, ironically, is more likely to cook first. But, check by pushing a fork deep into the chicken thighs to ensure they have entirely cooked through before serving
When these ingredients appear to be 5 to 6 mins from being ideally cooked, add your seafood (if uncooked) or only 2 to 3 mins prior to serving if pre-cooked. Depending on what you use (ideally still in the shell) this should reach optimum temperature within a few minutes. Do not cover and do not stir too vigorously
When your chicken is ready, turn off the heat, replace the lid and allow to rest
In a separate frying pan, heat a little unsalted butter (yes, use oil if you must but I strongly recommend butter) and fry the eggs; "sunny side up", ensuring that they remain separate from each other
Plate the sautéed dish. Place a fried egg on top of each diner's portion and serve
The Sides
An extremely simple "battlefield" dish, serve with rustic bread and steamed legumes of choice, liberally garnished with chopped capers, sliced spring onions and a smidgen of extra virgin olive oil.
Alternatives
Bluntly, this is essentially a cluck-'n-surf dish par excellence, so not one with which I have experimented much. To date...
the best pescatarian version I've done simply involved leaving the chicken out , trebling the quantity of seafood and adding it at the appropriate moment. Okay, so, yes, maybe more than trebling: I did it with whole lobsters
The only bearable vegetarian version I've managed to date involved ditching both the chicken and seafood and replacing them with veggie sausages added at the same point in the recipe as the chicken in this one. NB: they were the Quorn type of veggie sausages, less likely to break down over a longer cooking time
Pairings
The best wines I ever had suited to this dish were from where the battle took place, south of Lake Garda. They were "thin" reds from this region of Lombardy. Closer to a Spanish rosado than rosé, they're served chilled, according to local folklore, by cooling the bottles in mountain streams. But, they were undoubtedly red wines. Like an idiot, I never paid attention and am still trying to track them down. So until Karel comes to the rescue...
In the interim, I've matched today's outing with a bearable common-or-garden dry French rosé from somewhere bizarre.
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