Chicken Sautee

Seasoned chicken sauteed in butter with mushrooms, truffles and white wine.

The Dubois method of preparing this dish is as follows: Put into a stewpan some peeled truffles with a wineglassful of wine and a little salt, place the pan on the fire and boil, but do not do so until just previous to using them. Put an equal quantity of mushrooms in a saucepan and boil them, adding a little butter and the juice of a lemon. Take a couple of fat chickens, singe, draw and cut off the pinions and claws, and remove the legs. Cut the breast up so as to have two fillets and a breast part. Chop the bones of the body in halves and break the thick bones of the leg with a knife and take them out. Place the legs in a sautepan with a little butter, arrange them at the bottom, then put the neck, pinions and bones from the body, season them with salt and pepper and place the pan on the fire so that they will fry slowly. When they are about half cooked put in the fillets and breast parts, also a little parsley, sweet herbs and a clove of garlic; when the meat is set remove it from the pan with a skimmer, put it into another sautepan and stir in the truffles; remove the fat from the first sautepan, put in the truffle trimmings and a wine-glassful of white wine, boil for a few minutes and then add twice its bulk of brown sauce and the liquor in which the truffles were cooked. Boil this sauce quickly for ten minutes or so; remove the fat and pass it through a fine sieve onto the chicken meat. Warm the meat, taking care not to let the sauce boil again. Put in the center of a dish a croustade of fried bread, place the pinions and bones from the body around it; then place the fillets and legs around that again, and the parts of the breast on top. Garnish the base with some truffles and mushrooms, put a few cockscombs here and there, remove the fat from the sauce, and serve the meat with the sauce poured over.