food history, french cuisine, italian cuisine, recipes

Napoleonic Entree: Chicken or “Veal” (Pork) Marengo

Despite his remarkable career, Napoleon Bonaparte had several close calls on his rise to power. One such case was at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800. Napoleon had seized power in a coup the previous year. To secure his rule, he needed military victories. At the time, he was fighting the Austrians for control of northern Italy. They met in battle near the city of Alessandria, in the Piedmont region.

At first, the battle didn’t go well for the French, but Napoleon managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. His control over Italy was secured, skeptics in France were reassured, and other ambitious generals were discouraged from turning on him. To celebrate, or simply because he was hungry after a long and no doubt stressful battle, Napoleon requested a special dish. Or so the story goes.

Recipes for chicken marengo vary enormously. The only constants seem to be chicken (or occasionally veal) browned in olive oil, onions, and tomatoes, braised together to make a sort of stew. There’s usually garlic, mushrooms, and white wine. Many recipes include shallots and parsley, and a few use brandy instead of wine. Great chef Auguste Escoffier recommended including fried eggs and crayfish. Regardless of specifics, toasts fried in butter traditionally accompany chicken marengo.

To make things even more complicated, there seems to be a debate about whether chicken marengo is French or Italian. In Mimi Sheraton’s 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die, it’s in the French section, but I’ve also seen recipes in Italian cookbooks. Since the Piedmont region was historically part of the Duchy of Savoy, a realm straddling the Alps between France and Italy and right on the trade routes between them, it’s hardly surprising that a Piedmontese dish would be adopted into French cuisine, or vice-versa. And it’s fitting that an entrée associated with Napoleon should be considered both French and Italian. After all, he himself was a native of Corsica, then ruled by Genoa, but made his career in France.

For my own recipe, I combined the different strands into one, with no eggs or crayfish. The nice thing about chicken or “veal” marengo is that after browning the meat and making the “sauce,” it can be kept overnight and cooked the following day. Everything can be done in a Dutch oven, but if you don’t have one, a skillet and slow-cooker will also work. If you want to reduce fat and calories, the bread can be toasted dry in the oven or toaster, instead of in the buttered skillet. Or don’t toast it, if you prefer, but whatever you do, don’t skip it. You need bread to soak up the sauce.

Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut up, or roughly 3 pounds bone-in pork (or veal) chops
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter, plus more to brown toasts
1 medium onion, quartered and thinly sliced
2 shallots, halved and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, crushed with the side of the knife and minced
1 bunch parsley, thick stems separated from leaves and thinner stems, and both parts minced separately (don’t discard the thick stems)
3 tablespoons dry white wine, mixed with 1 tablespoon brandy
2 tablespoons flour
1 (roughly 15 oz) can crushed tomatoes, or about 2 lbs fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 pound mushrooms, cut into thick slices, with larger pieces halved
Baguette or Italian bread, to serve

Directions:

Brown meat in the olive oil and two tablespoons of the butter in the skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Set aside on a plate.
Add onion and shallots and sauté, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, or until they start to turn golden. Add the garlic and parsley stems and cook for 2 more minutes (garlic is added later because it cooks faster and burns more easily).
Stir in the wine/brandy mix, making sure to scrape up any browned bits at the bottom of the pan. Cook until the liquid is mostly evaporated, 5 to 10 minutes.
Add the flour and stir until incorporated. Follow with the tomatoes, and water if using canned. Bring sauce mixture to a boil. If using fresh tomatoes, reduce heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the tomatoes break down and release their juice. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Place the meat, skin side up if using chicken, in the Dutch oven or slow-cooker, and cover with the sauce. At this point, the chicken/pork/veal marengo can be refrigerated overnight if desired.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, if using Dutch oven. Bake for 2 to 3 hours, until the meat is tender (if the stew was chilled overnight, it will probably be at the longer end of the time range).
If using a slow-cooker, cook for about 4 hours on high or 6 – 8 on low. If it’s a little longer, like if you put it on before leaving for work, that’s completely fine.
Half an hour before serving (with either cooking method), melt the remaining butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and a little salt and cook, stirring frequently, until soft and aromatic, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add to the stew, pressing them down into the sauce, and leave to cook while browning the toasts (or for 15 minutes if you decide to use untoasted bread).
Toast the bread pieces in a buttered skillet over medium low heat until browned.
Sprinkle the stew with the parsley leaves and serve, toasts on the side.

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Chicken Waterzooi - Belgian chicken stew with egg, lemon, and cream

belgian cuisine, food history, soup, stew

Belgian Chicken Stew: Waterzooi a la Gantoise

Variants of chicken soup are eaten all over the world. Flavorings might vary, but the concept seems to be pretty universal for non-vegetarians. Historically, this usually involved a rooster or hen past their mating or egg-laying prime. Tough but flavorful, the chicken would be slow-cooked in liquid to tenderize the meat and produce a rich broth.

One Belgian recipe, called Waterzooi a la Gantoise, involves stewing the chicken with leeks, celery, and parsley root or parsnips, flavoring the mixture with lemon and cream, and thickening it with beaten egg yolks. Odd as this mix might sound, the recipe from 1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die, pages 151 – 152, had a nice flavor.

Belgium has a long and complicated history. Composed of Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, it was a battleground between France and the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. During the Middle Ages, Flanders in particular grew wealthy from cloth production. Since they needed English wool, attempts by the French kings to shut down the trade during their many conflicts with England predictably let to unrest. So did the kings’ attempts to centralize power in general and levy taxes.

In the late 14^th Century, most of the Low Countries came under control of the Dukes of Burgundy, followed by the Habsburgs a hundred years later. Charles V, the most powerful Holy Roman Emperor in centuries, was born in Flanders in 1500. By the time of his retirement in 1556, his empire included Spain, the Low Countries, Austria, Naples, Sicily, Milan, and Spain’s growing New World empire. All except Austria and the imperial title itself went to his son Philip II. Charles V’s brother Ferdinand I, who had been his deputy in Austria for years and gained Bohemia and Hungary through marriage, received these, creating the Habsburgs’ Austrian branch.

Just the Spanish Habsburg territories were a monumental task to control, as Philip II soon found out. He was hardworking but struggled to delegate, which made managing the far-flung provinces difficult. A particular issue was the spread of the Reformation in the Netherlands. Philip was not inclined to compromise on matters of religion, and unlike his father, didn’t spend much time outside of Spain after taking the throne. Feeling alienated by a “foreign” ruler, the Dutch revolted in the 1560s, leading to Eighty Years’ War. They were aided by England, which was part of why Philip sent the Spanish Armada.

When the dust settled, the modern Netherlands became independent, while modern Belgium remained part of the Spanish Empire. It was transferred to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1714, after the War of the Spanish Succession, and became part of the Revolutionary French Empire in the 1790s. After the defeat of Napoleon, Belgium was ruled by the restored Dutch monarchy. A few decades later, Belgium became independent under Leopold I, an uncle of Queen Victoria.

After everything they went through, Belgium tried to remain neutral in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries. With British support, this worked until 1914. When World War 1 broke out, Belgium had a problem. Specifically, Germany’s war plans. Since German high command knew they would be fighting on two fronts, they sought to defeat France quickly, before Russia managed to mobilize its army. The issue was that the French-German border was heavily fortified. The idea, called the Schlieffen Plan, was to go around these defenses by invading through neutral Belgium.

When Belgium refused military access, Germany declared war on them. Belgian forces put up a tougher fight than expected, giving the French time to reorganize their defense and for British support to land. By December, the Western Front was more or less stabilized, running right through Flanders, where it would remain for roughly three-and-a-half years.

The initial German advance, the years of occupation, and the eventual retreat in 1918 did a number of Belgium, especially Flanders. Attempts to stay neutral during World War 2 also failed, resulting in another multi-year occupation. Afterwards, finally, Belgium has finally enjoyed several decades of peace.

Evidence of prosperity can be seen the soup recipe, which uses chicken, eggs, cream, and vegetables that are not ultimately eaten. Since using vegetables to flavor the stock but then discarding them offends my sensibilities, I ended up returning them to the pot after removing the chicken skin and bones and straining the broth. The celery and leeks were a little overcooked, but still added some nice extra texture to the soup.

Immediately before serving, some of the hot broth is whisked into the egg yolks to temper them, then the mixture is returned to the pot to thoroughly heat but not boil. This is the same technique used in making custard, but for some reason the waterzooi didn’t thicken as much as I anticipated. Maybe I used too much water (the recipe said just enough to cover the chicken, which I thought I did). Maybe I didn’t heat the soup long enough after adding the egg yolks for fear of them curdling. Or maybe the issue was my expectations. Custards thickened with egg alone and not boosted with cornstarch are very thin.

Overall, the soup was very good, but not necessarily worth the trouble of making again as is. Perhaps pureeing the slightly overcooked vegetables into the broth as additional thickening would give it some extra body. (An immersion blender would be great for this.) On a scale of 1 to 10, I would probably give it a 7.

Arter med Flask - Swedish yellow pea soup

food history, recipes, soup, swedish cuisine

Swedish Thursday Night Special: Yellow Pea Soup and Swedish Pancakes with Lingonberries (with soup recipe)

Information is found in 100 Foods to Eat Before You Die pages 366, 371 – 372, and 340 – 341, soup recipe is my own

Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out where food traditions come from. According to legend, the Swedish tradition of eating yellow pea soup on Thursday nights came about because on one Thursday night in 1577, that’s how King Eric XIV was poisoned, which raises a few questions. Is eating pea soup a way to memorialize a good king, or the assassination of a bad one? Why was a king eating pea soup anyway? In most countries that was commoner’s fare. Kings and princes, especially in northern Europe, favored piles of meat and fish. Perhaps his doctor recommended a lighter diet, which would add a layer of irony to the story. And how did pancakes become the traditional dessert?

Regardless of how it happened, yellow pea soup and pancakes are still a Swedish Thursday night tradition, even if not every week. And why not? The soup is a simple mix of dried yellow peas, water, onions, salt, dried thyme, and a little ginger, with optional pork. The recipe on the bag suggested pork ribs, Mimi Sheraton mentioned cured pork in her description on page 366 in 1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die, so I used a smoked ham shank. It added an incredible richness of flavor to the soup, though it would still be good without it.

Arter med Flash - Swedish yellow pea soup — *Yellow pea soup with ham*

An interesting thing about the dried peas, aside from being yellow when many Americans are more used to green, is that they aren’t hulled or split. They take a bit longer to cook, but give the soup a much better texture and appearance. The flecks of thyme and ham pieces also improve the presentation. The soup was delicious as is, though a few rye crisps certainly wouldn’t hurt.

I had a slight problem with the Swedish pancakes. Because the batter is so thin, making multiple small pancakes at once wasn’t working. They just ran together, making one big crepe-like pancake. Since browning is more important, I rolled with it. The finished pancakes are served with lingonberry jam and often whipped cream.

Lingonberries are small, very tart berries native to Scandinavia. The best way to describe their flavor is about two thirds cranberry, one third sour cherry. Preserved lingonberries have a texture sort of like cranberry sauce, but the berries have softer skins. Jars of lingonberry preserves are available at most stores with an international aisle, and at some larger supermarkets next to the jam. The whole dessert, with lightly browned pancakes, reddish-purple lingonberries, and off-white whipped cream, is just beautiful.

Platter - Swedish pancakes with Lingonberries — *Whipped cream is optional, but highly recommended with Swedish pancakes and lingonberries*

Here’s how to make the soup. You will need:

1 lb (or 500g, which is fairly close) dried yellow peas, soaked overnight
1 package (2 pieces, roughly 2 lbs) smoked ham shanks (optional)
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp salt (reduce to 1 ½ tsp if using the ham shanks)
1 tsp dried thyme
Dash powdered ginger
Rye crisps or rye bread to serve, optional but recommended

Combine all ingredients in a pot with 8 cups of water and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer, with the lid tilted, until peas start to fall apart and ham shanks are tender, about 1 hour. Stir a few times toward the end of cooking.
Turn off the heat, remove the ham shanks to a cutting board, and cover the pot.
Once the ham shanks have cooled enough to handle, pull meat from the bone and cut into bite-sized pieces. Return ham chunks to pot.
Bring soup back to a simmer over low heat, stirring frequently.
Ideally serve with rye bread or crisps, even more ideally followed by Swedish pancakes.

As always, subscribe for free for recipes and trivia, sent right to your inbox. And if you want to buy me another jar of lingonberry preserves, I would be most grateful.