Julia Child's Chicken Poached in Butter inspired by the new movie Julie and Julia

Bonjour! Can you hear it? My Julia Child impersonation? Use your imagination people!

I bet all you foodies out there are psyched about the upcoming movie Julie and Julia. Well I'm not going to brag but.....ISAWITALREADYOHMYGODITWASAWESOME!!!! Okay, Okay, I'll calm down. Well you all know about bakespace already, geez, I tell you about it all the time and if you're new here or if you don't remember, bakespace is a social networking site for foodies like you and me! Well thanks to Sony and our fearless leader, Babette (the founder of bakespace), I won tickets to see the premier of Julie and Julia! There was a contest and I posted about it on facebook and twitter so everyone could participate in the giveaway. So on Tuesday me and a couple of other bakespace members who won tickets headed over to Garden State Plaza in Paramus to watch the movie.

Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet.


If you don't have time to watch trailer I'll briefly tell you what the movie is about (without giving anything away of course!). Julie and Julia is a story about Julie Powell, a food blogger who spends a year making every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. To read Julie Powell's blog, the Julie/Julia Project click here. Intertwined with Julie's story is the story of Julia Child and how she came to live in France and how she became a chef. Obviously, you all know who Julia Child is (except my father who thought I was going to meet someone from the food network when I told him I won tickets to see Julie and Julia...that's a post for another day!) but the story of Julie Powell is real. She started off without any readers and before you know it she was contacted by publishers, magazine editors and television network producers. It's amazing how that happened. Being a food blogger myself I can certainly relate to everything (well, except the being published part!) and this movie just pulled at my heartstrings. It was fantastic!!!! I loved it!!! Merryl Streep and Amy Adams were fantastic! Have I convinced you yet that this movie was fabulous? Okay, so again, Thank YOU Babette for making this possible! I don't know how I would have held out for two more weeks!



I came out of the theater and I knew I just had to make a recipe from Julia Child's cookbook. I don't own her cookbook and I didn't grow up watching her on television. I've seen an episode here and there but never was interested in french cooking. Good thing because I would certainly be double my size if I was. Yesterday I did a search on the internet for a Julia Child recipe using chicken breasts and I found the following recipe on HGTV's website. Click here to see the article. The dish was delicious and decadent, I really enjoyed it (even though I overcooked the rice - oops) but unfortunately, this will not become part of my regular rotation. It's just way too fattening...almost one stick of butter. The sauce was amazing, I could eat it with a spoon! I used marsala because I forgot to buy madeira but I don't think it made much of a difference. I also forgot the mushrooms! Hopefully Julia Child isn't rolling around in her grave (yes Dad, Julia Child is no longer with us so I couldn't possibly meet her and get some advice like you suggested)! Okay, enough of my babbling...here's the recipe!



Supremes de Volaille a Blanc (Chicken breasts poached in butter)

From Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. Knopf, 1961.

Ingredients:

Rice:
1/3 cup finely minced onions
2 tbsp. butter
1 cup raw, unwashed white rice
2 cups chicken stock or broth
salt and pepper
small herb bouquet: 2 parsley sprigs, 1 bay leaf, and a sprig of thyme tied together with white string.

Chicken:
4 thin boneless, skinless chicken cutlets
salt, pepper and lemon juice
4 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup diced onions
1/4 cup diced carrots
1/4 sliced mushrooms

Wine Sauce:
1/4 cup white or brown stock
1/4 cup port, Madeira or dry white vermouth
1 cup heavy cream
salt, pepper, lemon juice
2 tbsp. minced parsley

Preparation:

For the rice, cook the onions slowly in the butter until soft. Add the rice and stir over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes until rice, which first turns translucent, becomes a milky white color. Then stir in the chicken stock, season lightly with salt and pepper, and add the herb bouquet. Stir briefly until simmer is reached, then cover closely and cook at a moderate simmer, about 18 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed. Do not stir rice at all until this has happened. Then fluff lightly with a fork, adding more salt and pepper if necessary. This can be cooked ahead of time and reheated.

For the chicken: Preheat oven to 400. Cook the vegetables in the butter in a fireproof casserole before adding the chicken. Season meat with salt, pepper and drops of lemon juice. Lay over vegetables in one layer in the casserole, making sure the chicken is coated in the butter. Cover the surface of the casserole with wax paper. Place in oven for 6 to 7 minutes, or until the meat feels springy when you push on it. Remove from oven and set casserole aside while you prepare the sauce.

For the sauce: Pour stock and wine into a saucepan and boil rapidly until liquid is syrupy. Then pour in the cream and boil rapidly until lightly thickened. Season with salt, pepper and drops of lemon juice. Pour the sauce over the casserole and serve with the warm rice.

Bon Apetit!












For a web companion to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, check out Whisk: a food blog.