Tasting History 拿破崙的晚餐 - 馬倫戈雞｜Feeding Napoleon - Chicken Marengo

Napoleon Bonaparte, a man renowned for his skill on the battlefield, and famous for his messy eating habits and his love of chicken, specifically, Boulet a la Marengo, or Chicken Marengo, which I'm making using a recipe from the 19th century. So thank you to NordVPN for sponsoring this video as we make dinner for Napoleon, this time on Tasting History. Chicken Marengo, for some reason I think it sounds like it should be a tropical dish. Marengue, mango, I don't know. But in fact, Marengo is the name of a battle fought on the 14th of June 1800 between the Austrian army and the French forces under First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. The battle in northern Italy was a near-defeat-turned-victory for the French and cemented Napoleon's control of Italy. But it's what happened after the victory that concerns us because, as the story goes, Bonaparte was rather hungry after the victory and so he went back to his quarters and asked his cook Dunant to whip him up a meal. Well it's common knowledge that the French can't eat a meal without butter so that was the first ingredient Dunant went to find. But zut alors, it seems that the Italian countryside was devoid of butter. Mon dieu. There was oil in abundance, however, and the cook, having poured a certain quantity into his skillet, put the fowl with a clove of garlic and other seasoning with a little white wine, the best the country afforded. He then garnished it with mushrooms and served it up hot. It was a hit and Napoleon devoured that chicken as fast as he devoured the ice cream in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It was one further conquest for this victorious day. The hero applauded and thereafter poulet a la maringo has always appeared on the best served tables. A wonderful story. A story of pure fiction. First of all Dunant didn't work for Napoleon at that time. Second, it's pretty much confirmed that Napoleon was actually a guest of his cavalry general that evening for dinner. But it doesn't mean that the dish itself wasn't a favorite of Napoleon. It's just that it probably got its name after the fact because Napoleon liked it and it was a way to connect the two. His valet wrote the dish that the emperor liked the most was this type of chicken fricassee that was dubbed poulet a la maringo because it was the favorite of the conqueror of Italy. And another of his household said that it was actually the restaurants of Paris that gave it that name as a way to sell more chicken. Anything with a Napoleonic connection doing very well at the time. What we do know is that it was very popular in Paris during the reign of Napoleon and afterward. What we don't know is what exactly that original dish was. Because by the time recipes start to actually appear about 10 years after Napoleon's death they all vary wildly. Some have tomatoes, black truffles, eggs, and by the late 19th century crayfish which have become the standard today. But by most accounts Napoleon himself preferred his dishes simply prepared. Like this 1869 recipe from Le Livre du Cuisine, poulet a la maringo. Prepare the chicken as for fricassee. Put a deciliter of oil in the saucepan. Add the pieces of chicken so they do not overlap one another. Add three pinches of salt, two pinches of pepper, two shallots whole, one whole clove of garlic, one bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, one bunch of parsley. Fry for 25 minutes till the chicken is done. Place the chicken on a platter and keep warm. Put 40 grams of flour in the sauté pan. Mix together and heat for 4 minutes and add 5 deciliters of broth. Simmer for 10 minutes stirring with the wooden spoon. Pass the sauce through the so-called Chinese strainer. Dress the chicken as for chicken fricassee. Pour over the sauce and serve. Mushrooms may be added as a garnish. Now finding this recipe as with many of the old French recipes is difficult because so many are not available here in the United States and I have to find them on these French websites that for some reason won't ever give me access because I'm in the United States. So I have to pretend to be in France thanks to a little help from today's sponsor NordVPN. Yes a number of my favorite sites both for research and for entertainment mostly British murder mystery shows. They won't let me watch or access them because I'm not a local. But with Nord I can place myself virtually most anywhere in the world opening up endless caches of content. And when you're traveling literally like physically moving to a different place Nord can help you keep your information secure whenever you're logging into one of those more dodgy Wi-Fi networks. And for added security you can try NordPass which allows you to store all of your passwords which should be unique in a safe secure spot so you can easily access them so you're not always having to forget them and then hit forgot password and then you get a notification that your new password is the same as your old password. It's the worst. And you can try NordVPN risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee when you visit my link nordvpn.com slash Max Miller. I'm Max Miller if you were wondering. Also you get extra subscription time and a huge discount when you use that link. It's nordvpn.com slash Max Miller. Now back to the recipe. For this what you'll need is some chicken. Now you can carve up a whole chicken but I have found that the white meat and the dark meat cook very, very differently so I went all dark meat just legs and thighs. 100 milliliters of olive oil, a half teaspoon of salt, a quarter teaspoon of pepper, two shallots peeled but left whole, one clove of garlic, one bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, a bunch of parsley, a third cup or 40 grams of flour, two cups or 500 milliliters of beef broth, and some optional mushrooms. Step one add all of the oil to a large pan and heat it over medium high heat. Then add in the chicken making sure that the pieces aren't overlapping. Then sprinkle in the salt and the pepper. Add in the shallots and the garlic wherever you can find space and finally toss in the parsley and thyme. Then set the lid on the pan and let everything fry for 10 minutes. Then remove the lid, turn the chicken over, return the lid, let it fry for another 10 minutes and then once again remove the lid, turn the chicken, and give it another 5 minutes of cooking. As soon as the chicken is cooked remove it from the pan, setting it onto a dish and covering it so it stays nice and warm. Also you can remove the shallots and some of the bigger pieces of herb. They'll keep those nearby because they're going to be going back in just a second. So with the oil still nice and hot add in the flour and quickly stir in to create a roux. Let it cook stirring fairly often for a couple of minutes and then add the herbs and shallots back in and cook for another couple of minutes or until the roux has become golden brown. Then pour in the beef broth. This should deglaze the pan lifting off any pieces that are stuck to the bottom but you may need to use a wooden spoon to help scrape some off. Let the sauce come to a simmer and then stirring continuously let it cook and thicken for 10 full minutes. So while that simmers I wanted to let you know that even if you were not able to make one of the book signings while I was on book tour I have a couple links in the description to where you can get signed copies of the Tasting History Cookbook and they ship internationally. The perfect holiday gift for the food history lover in your life. And if you are the food history lover in your life then you'll really like this next segment where I talk about the dining habits of Napoleon Bonaparte. There are many stories about Napoleon and what he ate but like most things about Napoleon you've got to take a lot with a grain of salt because they were written down either by his enemies or years, years later after his death by people who didn't actually know him. However a number of people who actually did know the emperor mostly members of his household staff wrote down their recollections of him including what he ate in their memoirs. So that's how I know that Napoleon would eat almost every morning some chicken dressed with oil and onions. And it seems that no matter what it was whether it was chicken or something else he liked to keep the dishes simple. The simplest dishes were those which suited him the best. He preferred a good soup he liked it very hot and a good piece of boiled beef to all the complicated and succulent dishes which his cooks could make for him. A piece of parmesan or Roquefort cheese closed his meals. If there happened to be any fruit it was served to him but if he ate any of it it was but very little. For instance he would only take a quarter of a pear or an apple or a very small bunch of grapes. And it makes sense that he liked things simple because Napoleon was kind of a picky eater. It's said that he really liked beans white beans, lentils especially green beans but he was afraid to eat them for fear of finding threads which he said felt like hair. The very thought of which would turn his stomach. So just as many picky eaters today will have chicken fingers and fries for practically every meal because they're just so reliable. Napoleon had his simple chicken dish for nearly every meal because it was so reliable. And this chicken dish actually figures in two of my favorite food stories which let us get a glimpse of the mercurial temperament of the general. The general ordered to his household to have cutlets and roast chicken ready at all hours night and day was observed to the letter by his maître d'hôtel Dunant who had been a celebrated cook. But one day Napoleon asked for his lunch and so this chicken was served to him but after only one bite a recollection something he was thinking about agitated him and he stood up furious knocking over the table like a real housewife and the meal went everywhere. He began raging and pacing about the room but knowing the general's mood swings and completely unfazed Dunant looked on without moving a muscle and quietly gave the fitting orders to his staff. Quick as thought the wreck was cleared away and an exact duplicate of the déjeuner appeared as if by magic. Napoleon felt the delicacy and appreciated the tact of this mode of service. Merci bien mon cher Dunant And one of his intimidable smiles showed that the hurricane had blown over. The other story takes place at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. Late one night Napoleon and his Mamluk bodyguard Roustan returned home and Napoleon goes straight to bed but his favorite chicken dish had already been prepared for him. Well Roustan was quite famished and so he asked the valet Constant if he might have some. Well after some back and forth the valet decides okay Roustan you can have some of the chicken and Roustan has a leg and a wing and only then did a bell ring and they heard Napoleon shout Constant, my dinner. Well now they were both screwed. So Constant quickly carved up the chicken hoping that Napoleon might not notice a few pieces missing. But when he delivered the chicken to Napoleon Napoleon said see here since when did chickens begin to have only one wing and one leg. That is fine. It seems that I must eat what others leave. Well not wanting the valet to get in trouble Roustan fesses up and says that it was he who ate the chicken. And this is followed by a string of expletives chewing him out. Napoleon was just he was really, really upset about this chicken. In fact even the next day he still hadn't got over it and was telling someone who wasn't even involved in this I leave you to guess what I ate last night for my supper. The scraps which Monsieur Roustan left. Yes the idiot took a notion to eat half of my chicken and the next time it happens be sure you will pay for it. So don't eat Napoleon's chicken. And I wouldn't go near his almonds either. For what he especially liked were fresh almonds. He was so fond of them that he would eat almost the whole plate. He also liked rolled waffles in which a little cream had been put. Two or three lozenges were all the candy he ate. Now something else that many people commented on were Napoleon's table manners or rather complete lack thereof. First of all he ate really, really fast. The emperor ate quickly and swallowed so fast that you would think he chewed very little or even not at all. His valet said that at dinner Napoleon rarely spent more than twelve minutes at the table and in the morning the emperor frequently breakfasted alone on a little mahogany candle stand with no cover which meal even shorter than the other lasted only eight or ten minutes. Due in great measure to his haste the emperor lacked much of eating decently and always preferred his fingers to a fork or spoon. Much care was taken to place within his reach the dish he preferred which he drew toward him in the manner I have just described and dipped his bread in the sauce or gravy it contained. So a fast eater and a messy one he seemed to always have to be cleaning his uniform because it was always stained with food that he wiped from his fingers. Now I understand eating quickly when you're alone especially if there's nothing to watch on TV but Napoleon also ate quickly when he had guests. Many who dined with him said that his mind seemed to be elsewhere even when having a conversation with him at dinner and after about twelve minutes he would get up and just walk away even if everyone else was eating. So if you wanted to have a conversation with him you had to plan ahead. On one occasion when his stepson Prince Eugene was dining with him as Napoleon stood to leave so too did Eugene and he followed his stepfather into the other room. Well Napoleon who probably wanted to be alone turned around and said but you have not had time to dine Eugene. Pardon me replied the prince. I dined in advance. Now eating that fast may have been a good way for Napoleon to get back to the work that he wanted to do but it came with its own issues. His valet Constant said that the habit of eating rapidly sometimes causes his majesty violent pains in his stomach which ended almost always in a fit of vomiting. And he tells of one night when the emperor's dinner caused him some severe digestion. I hurried to his majesty's room and found him stretched at full length on the rug which was the habit of the emperor when he felt unwell. The empress Josephine was seated by his side with the sick man's head on her lap while he groaned or stormed alternately or did both at once. For the emperor bore this kind of misfortune with less composure than a thousand graver mischances which the life of a soldier carries with it. He showed himself unequal to the endurance of the slightest pain. Napoleon had a tummy ache poor emperor but they gave him a cup of tea and he felt fine in no time and speaking of tea that was one of the only things that he considered medicinal that was worth taking because he found most medicines repugnant and when he used any which was very rare it was chicken broth chicory or cream of tartar. Though there was one non-food medicine that he did take and it seems that at times he took it to excess because to take care of his teeth he used a toothpick made from boxwood and a toothbrush dipped in opiate. Little opiate to start the day but never any liquor. He actually never went near liquor. In fact the only alcohol that he had was wine and even then it was watered down and of not great quality. The emperor drank only chambartin wine and rarely without water for he had no fondness for wine and was a poor judge of it. This recalls that one day at the camp of Bologna having invited several officers to his table his majesty had wine poured for Marshal Augereau and asked him with an air of satisfaction how he liked it. The marshal tasted it sipped it critically and finally replied there is better in a tone which was unmistakable. The emperor who had expected a different reply smiled as did all the guests at the marshal's candor. It was not until his time on St. Helena as a prisoner of the English that he started to experiment with things like claret and even champagne but again very often watered them down. He did however find that he liked a sweet dessert wine from South Africa called Constantia though he called it Las Casas named after the Count of Las Casas who would provide him the wine and it may have been the very last thing that Napoleon ever drank. In his last moments when he rejected everything that was offered to him he said give me a glass of Las Casas wine. So if he didn't drink much wine and never touched liquor then with what did the emperor wet his whistle? Well it seems mostly coffee. Many say he drank coffee several times a day but his valet wants you to know it is not true as reported that he made an immoderate use of coffee for he only took half a cup after breakfast and another after dinner though it sometimes happened when he was much preoccupied that he would take without noticing it two cups in succession though coffee taken in this quantity always excited him and kept him from sleeping. It also happened frequently that he took it cold or without sugar or with too much sugar. To avoid this the Empress Josephine made it her duty to pour the emperor's coffee herself and the Empress Marie Louise also adopted the same custom. Her Majesty the Empress poured the coffee put sugar in it tried a few drops of it and offered it to the emperor. Now personally I pour my own coffee but I do have something in common with Napoleon and that's if I have too much coffee especially late in the day I just can't sleep right and so if it's in the evening I prefer either tea or hot chocolate which is what Napoleon enjoyed. When he worked late at night he never ordered coffee but chocolate of which he made me take a cup with him but this only happened when our business was prolonged till two or three in the morning but he gave that up and under the empire no longer took anything except from time to time but very rarely either punch milk as light as lemonade or when he first awoke an infusion of orange leaves or tea. Now even though in general Napoleon seemed to enjoy quick and simple meals that was not always the case. Especially during his banishment on St. Helena his propensity for longer meals and sweeter fancier foods did become apparent perhaps because there was absolutely nothing else for him to do there though records do show that even then at pretty much every meal there was a simple chicken dish which would become Poulet à la Marengo. So as soon as your sauce has cooked for ten minutes the recipe says to pour it through what is called a Chinese strainer and that is a conical strainer that usually has slightly larger holes than a fine mesh strainer and I swear I had one or have one but I didn't go looking for it until I was already in the midst of cooking completely unprepared and so I ended up having to use a mesh strainer but it worked just fine. Now this sauce being rather oily does tend to split and if your sauce splits you may be saying there is nothing we can do but that is far from the truth. In fact you can just add a couple tablespoons of water set it back over a low heat and in just a moment you'll have a nice smooth sauce once again. Then arrange your chicken in a dish and pour the sauce over it. Now the recipe says that mushrooms are an optional garnish but it doesn't say how to cook them or even if they should be cooked at all I imagine though that they would and so I quickly sauteed mine in a little oil just to bring out the flavor. And here we are the chicken merengue of General Napoleon Bonaparte. Now since the emperor ate with his fingers so too shall I. Here we go. My uniform is going to be a mess. Oh but it's so worth it. That is that's really, really good. So what's crazy is that the sauce even though it's very simple for a French sauce it has so much complexity in its flavor. No, not as complex if you were using like three day old stock and making, you know some of the more complicated French sauces but there is a lot there especially for only taking I think I did this in what? Under an hour. Definitely fantastique. I also have to say this style is done with things other than chicken. There are there's veal merengue and even different fish merengues so it's more this preparation. You can do it with any meat that you want. And just a reminder that you can get those signed cookbooks at the links in the description. They do ship internationally and I will see you next time on Tasting History.