Dinner from Antoine's

I haven't cooked any of the Antoine's recipes yet, so their Chicken Creole is a first. And its not because these recipes sound whack-a-doody like those from Arnaud's, but quite the reverse. A lot of them sound really yummy. But I find Antoine's really intimidating for a whole bunch of reasons. Its the granddaddy of all the New Orleans restaurants, with a menu largely unchanged for 165 years. Its been in open for business, except for a Katrina blip, since 1840, and is the oldest continuously operating restaurant run by the same family in the nation.

Its quite a beautiful space, especially some of the smaller dining rooms. But the last time I ate there, sometime in the early 1990s, everything seemed a bit ossified. The menu was essentially the same menu as before the civil war, entirely in French and all a la carte. I remember starting with Huites a la Foch, fried oysters and fois gras on toast points covered with a Colbert sauce. The dish was named for Marshall Foch, leader of French forces in World War I, and you could just taste the history. This was followed by Pompano en Papillote, pompano (a firm gulf fish) baked in paper with shrimp and crab in a veloute sauce enriched by wine. Steam from cooking is supposed to puff up the paper, suggesting a balloon, and the paper top is dramatically cut open at the table by the waiter. Dramatic, but not light fare. The dinner ended with an enormous Omlette Alaska Antoine, the restaurant's version of baked Alaska--with sponge cake, ice cream, covered in a dense meringue, elaborately decorated with meringue swans. Big on drama. A lot less wow on taste.

The experience of dining at Antoine's is like no other, at least no other I've had. There is such a sense of history in both the surroundings and on the plate. And while that appeals to the antiquarian in me, I'm not so sure about its appeal to the epicurean. But onward and upward with Chicken Creole, which is another of those dishes that seems to be everywhere, featured on just about every type of New Orleans restaurants' menus, from the lowest mom-and-pop to the biggest of the big. I chose this recipe because I was intrigued to see what such a venerable institution as Antoine's had done with it.

Chicken Creole
Antoine's

1 (3 1/2 lb.) frying chicken
1/4 cup olive oil
1 (#2) can tomatoes
2 Tbs. butter
1 tsp. salt
Pepper and cayenne
1 sprig thyme
1 Tbs. minced parsley
1 bay leaf
3 minced cloves garlic
1 Tbs. flour
6 chopped shallots (green onions) or 1/2 cup minced onion
5 Tbs. bell pepper
1/2 cup white wine

Disjoint chicken and clean well. Saute in oil, browning on both sides. Simmer tomatoes and 1 Tbs. of butter together 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and a few grains of pepper and cayenne and simmer 10 minutes. Add thyme, parsley, bay leaf, and garlic and cook 15 minutes, or until sauce is thick. Melt 1 Tbs. butter, blend in flour, and cook until brown. Add shallots or onion and bell pepper and brown slightly. Add wine , stirring constantly until slightly thickened. Combine wine and tomato mixtures and add chicken. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes, or until chicken is tender. Serve with steamed rice.
Serves 4-6.

Um...What's a # 2 can of tomatoes? And while its great there are some times listed in the instructions, really unusual for the Cookbook, what happens to the chicken after its first browned? It sort of disappears until the end, right? Or does it get cook with the tomatoes? I'm not so sure.

The first thing I did was disjoint the chicken. I know this is ghoulish, but I love carving up chickens. I'm not all that keen on chicken, but it makes me so happy to chop them up.

I washed and dried the chicken pieces and began to brown them in a Dutch oven with 1/4 cup of the olive oil over a medium-high heat.

I was only doing a half of chicken, so it took about 12 minutes to brown everything.

I looked online to find out what in the hell a #2 can of tomatoes was exactly. It looks as though it was an old system of can sizes, which hasn't been used for more than 40 years. What I didn't find out was exactly what size that can was. One site said 18 oz. and another said 20 oz. and one said 22 oz. I decided to compromise with 20 oz. of whole tomatoes, which worked out to a little more than half of a 35 oz. can. I chopped the tomatoes and began to saute them in butter.

I've never actually sauteed tomatoes in butter before I don't think. I probably would have remembered because they smell f-ing fantastic. Really super good. I simmered the tomatoes over very low heat for 10 minutes. I then added 1 tsp. of salt, 1/4 tsp. of cayenne, and a couple of turns from the black pepper grinder. I continued simmering for another 10 minutes.



I then added thyme, parsley, bay, garlic and cooked for an additional 15 minutes. The sauce thickened up considerably.

I don't have a picture of this because I was working very quickly. I poured out the grease leftover from browning the chicken and wiped out the Dutch oven, making sure to leave the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Over high heat, I threw in 1 Tbs. of butter and when foaming, blended in the flour, stirring constantly. After 1 minute or so, I added the green onions and bell peppers, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan. After 2 minutes, I added the wine and de-glazed the pan, stirring constantly until thickened. I took the pan off of heat and added the tomato mixture.

I then added the chicken and returned to a very low fire.

I covered the pan, stirring a bit in the beginning, as it seemed to be sticking. I simmered for 45 minutes.

The cooking times in the recipe were dead on. A first for the Cookbook. And it was really yum. Again, it was a lot lighter than what I traditionally know as Chicken Creole, but incredibly flavorful. It also has the added bonus of being practically dietetic, since it only has 2 Tbs. of butter and not multiple sticks, as several of the other recipes I've cooked have called for.

I served it with the Chateau Lamothe Bordeaux blanc, but it probably could have used something even more robust. I'll put up the tweaked recipe tomorrow.