Chicken Marengo: A Classic French Dish, Napoleon’s Favorite Chicken? | Chef Jean-Pierre

Well hello there friends! New chef's hat. I got a fun video today friends. You know we're going back in the 70s. Forget about 70s, we're going back in the 1800s. The 70s is a dish that I used to cook in my restaurant. Chicken Marengo. Very easy recipe to make. You guys are going to love it. I'm going to show you how to do it. Remember, thumbs up if you like the video. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel. And don't forget to ring the bell. Stay tuned friends, we're making Chicken Marengo. It was supposed to be Napoleon's favorite chicken dish. Stay tuned, we're making it right now. Vive la France! You like? It's my new chef's hat. No, it's Napoleon. The dish, the Marengo chicken, supposedly was supposed to be created by the chef of Napoleon after the battle of Marengo in the 1800s. That's what the story was. That's what I believed my whole life. And then I did a little research and found out it had nothing to do with it. Friends, let me put some, I got a whole big onion in there. And I got about eight ounces of sautéed mushroom. This is going to be the simplest recipe I did this year. A little salt and pepper. Everybody can do this. For those of you that say, oh, I can't cook, I can't do this, I can't do this. If you can't do this, let's have a meeting, okay? Friends, you can all do this. So in the 1800s, supposedly, there was a battle north of Italy. Italy was not even there yet, but it was north of Italy. What is today north of Italy? The French were fighting the Austrian. Austrian, not Australian. They won the battle in the 1800s in the Marengo area. And at the end, supposedly, the chef prepared a meal to celebrate, but he ended up, when we did more research, then, it's probably a restaurant in Paris, then figure, hey, the Battle of Marengo, everybody celebrates, let's call the chicken, chicken Marengo. 20 years later, I'm opening up a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, 20 years, nevermind, 220 years later, I'm opening a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, French restaurant. And I said, hey, chicken Marengo, let's put it on the menu. But I had another alternative. I tell you, it's a funny story. If anybody thinks so, it's funny. Hey, I'm getting rid of the, you know what? I can't stand that hat. I had enough of it. You know, when I was an apprentice, I had to wear a hat and probably my hair a mess. That's okay. I had to wear a hat, but my hat, I would hollow the whole top of it because my head couldn't breathe. Somehow, my head gets really hot if I wear a hat. I can never wear a hat unless it's got a hole on the top and the chef's hat was good for that. So anyway, now supposedly Napoleon loved to eat chicken and the cooking they did, I looked at the recipe that you do used to do two, 300 years ago. They were like really, really basic, everything. I mean, really bad, a lot of fat. They had butter, they had butter, thank goodness. But they were really, really, the very little ingredient in most recipes. And Napoleon supposedly ate chicken even in the morning, supposedly, but I don't know. I wasn't there. So anyway, I got to tell you, it's funny because when I bought my restaurant, I was 24 years old and I was going to call it Napoleon. So when I went to France in Fontainebleau, which is an area where Napoleon was, I bought so many Napoleon stuff, statues and things. I was going to call the restaurant Napoleon. My French restaurant, I was going to call it Napoleon. France, I have a whole chicken that I cut up and it's the thighs and the two breasts skinless. Now they didn't do it skinless. They did it with the skin on at the time because they didn't mind a soggy skin. When you braise the chicken, which means you putting it in liquid, your skin is going to soggy. It's going to get soggy. The only time the skin of the chicken is good, friends, is if you fry it or sauté, but if you put the skin or roast it, it's wonderful. If you roast the chicken, then the skin is delicious. But braising it, which means we're going to put it in liquid, no good, my friends. I promise you. So that's why. Now you want to leave the skin on, if you like soggy skin, it's up to you. So what other ingredients do we have? And like I said, it was on my menu, by the way. I said, I can't call the restaurant because I ended up calling my restaurant The Left Bank because I was on the left side of the tunnel, then it's in the middle of the downtown Fort Lauderdale. So I ended up calling it The Left Bank. If you came on the other side, I was on the right bank, but The Left Bank is a famous area in France. So I figured, call it the famous area in France. But I wanted to call it Napoleon. I don't know why I called it Napoleon. But anyway, that's it. So it was a chicken Marengo was on the menu, especially when we were open for lunch. People were like, you see, it's a very simple dish, friends. We're going to put a little bit of garlic, a tablespoon of garlic, two teaspoons, three teaspoons, whatever you want to put in there. And I got some fresh thyme. I doubt very much they were using that at the time, but we're going to make it the way we want it because the way they did it, the original recipe, trust me, you wouldn't want to eat it because they ate differently then, you know. So we're going to wait until this is beautiful golden brown, and then we're going to make a broth here, and then we're going to put everything in here. You could certainly do it in one pot at home. You don't need to dirty two. You do the chicken, get a beautiful golden brown, and put it aside. And when this is done, you add the chicken. All right. So now I smell the garlic. Remember, when you smell the garlic, put the wine in it. Measure carefully. Whatever you have left over on the wine, just put it in there or drink it. Those are two good advice. What do you think, Jack? Those are good advice? Drink the wine or just pour it all in? He agrees. So look guys, whenever you're cooking with wine, you gotta let it reduce. Always remember that. Let it reduce, let it reduce, let it reduce until there's almost none left. And if you're not sure if it's reduced enough, you test it. If it don't taste good, keep reducing it. Now don't put anything in here. I'm going to put tomato, I'm going to put chicken stock and bay leaf. Don't put it in now, because if you put it in now, the tomatoes and the chicken stock, your wine is not going to reduce. And if your wine doesn't reduce, my friends, it's not going to be any good. You have to let the wine reduce. Why are these things not changing color? See, this is what I'm looking for, but much better than this. This is not enough. So it looks like we're going to have to wait a while. Mamma mia. I really want some beautiful color. Maillard reaction. See, look, this is not enough reduced, but just in case you're not sure, you test it. You take a spoon, because you don't want to go with your finger there, and you're testing. And you can test a little bit of acidity. It gets in the back of your tongue, you know, like you have a lemon. I mean, not as much of a lemon, but you know, when you have a lemon, you're making these funny faces. Well, the same thing here. You know, when the wine is not quite reduced enough, you're not supposed to test any acidity. How we doing over there? Are you coming to me or not? It's taking its time, but it's taking forever. There we go. Let's test it. Let's see what we have here, friends. You would be amazed. I told you that in a few other videos. I want you to educate your palate. Is my wine reduced enough? Is my wine reduced enough? Test it. You would be amazed of the difference than it was two minutes ago compared to now. You would not believe it. I'm telling you, my friends, I got about 18, 20 ounces of chopped tomatoes. Chopped tomatoes. I bought the Semarsana tomatoes. I peeled them, and I chopped them like this. Very fancy technique. I got two cups of chicken stock here. I'm probably just going to put one for now. Mix all this up. I mean, how simple can you get? You can't get more simple than this, right, friends? Now, if you didn't follow the Marengo recipe, ah, we're getting there, friends. You see? If you do not follow the Marengo recipe, you could add olives to this. Jack loves olives. Bring out the olives. I always make extra for him. So, friends, I'm going to cook this. Let's put a bay leaf in there. Remember, bay leaf, if you don't cook it, you might as well don't bother putting it in. This is the old way of cooking a bay leaf, but put a bay leaf in there. You don't need more than one. Unless you're cooking for the French army, then you put three of them in there. All right, friends, let's see what we got. We need to get the color on the other side, because this will, we're going to reduce this slowly. You may wait a couple of minutes, friends. When it's beautiful, go to brown, I put it in, and I'm going to put a top on it. I'll come back in a minute. Okay, friends, I am going to put them in there now. We may add a little, this is what we're talking about, braising. We're doing it in liquid. Let me put this guy right there in the middle. One leg over here. It doesn't matter. Right there, right there, right there. Now, my friends, we are going to put a cover on it. We're going to reduce the heat very, very slowly, and very, very slowly, very slowly. Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. No, no, bloop, bloop, bloop, like it was over there a minute ago. Reduce the heat, friends. Let it cook very slowly until you meet this 165 in the interior. That's all there is to it. How simple was that? I'm going to finish it up, and I'll come back when it's all finished. See you in a minute. Okay, friends, well, it's ready, and it's beautiful. I put a little parsley in there, and another thing that I want to put in here, and we used to do it at the restaurant. I don't remember if it's Napoleon Chef who did it or not, but it doesn't matter. Remember, friends, we're going to put a little bit of the lemon zest. This, believe it or not, the lemon zest, friends, it's going to be amazing what it does. It really does. It brightens the whole thing. It's very important to do. You're going to say, well, I don't have a lemon. Try to find a lemon, please, my friends. Sometimes I say, hey, you don't have it, don't put it in, but it's not going to change that much, but I promise you, you're missing out an amazing opportunity to make this dish from good to like, wow. It's amazing. When I make the osso bucco, I put this. When I make chicken cacciatore, I put this. It's very important, the little lemon. Look at this. Plus, it looks beautiful, doesn't it? And I was thinking, you know, I'm not going to eat it right now. It's way too hot. It's way too hot. 35, 40 minutes. Don't forget to use your thermometers. Check that it's cooked at least at 155, 160. Okay. In case it happens, then your legs, your breast, because the breasts are boneless right there, they're going to cook faster. I cook faster than the legs and take them out. Continue cooking your leg. The legs could take a little bit longer to cook, okay? Otherwise, you're good. There should be enough thickness from the flour then you use in case that it's not, you can take one teaspoon or one tablespoon of cornstarch and bring it in and get it thicker a little bit. I'm going to let it cool for a second and then I'm going to test it, okay? See you guys in a minute. All right, friends. I'm hungry. You see the sauce is, let me put this in here. The sauce is, it's thick enough. As long as you put enough flour on the chicken, you'll have no problem with it as long as you don't put too much wine in there. No, it comes out all right. And you serve this with the rice, with polenta, with fresh pasta, with mashed potatoes. Serve it anything. It's going to be delicious. It's so simple to make when you really think about it, right friends? I mean, if you really, really think about it, you realize that, my goodness, look at this. And it's so simple and it's going to be so delicious. Oh yeah. Very simple. This is like a, so I didn't do it because Jack doesn't like them. But normally you put black olives. No, not normally. I would put black olives. I didn't even know if they had black olive at the time. They probably did. But black olive would be, give you a je ne sais quoi. A very French je ne sais quoi. My friends, I hope you like it. Remember, very easy to make. That's the idea of this channel. We make things and you guys say, I can do this. Change it up a little bit. You know, do new recipes. Pick up a recipe on the channel and say, I can do this. I promise you, you can. Rate the review of the people who are doing it and say, I can do this. Remember, thumbs up if you like the video. Don't forget, subscribe to the channel. Most of you are not subscribed. And don't forget to ring the bell. Thanks for watching, friends. That reminds me of the, in the restaurant in the seventies. We used to serve with polenta. It was delicious with my creamy polenta. I should have done that for them today. That's delicious. It's really, really beautiful. Hmm.