Chicken chasseur (, but unrelated to the British dish of that name) is a

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

dish, known in France as , or . It consists of fried chicken served hot, with sauce chasseur, which is based on mushrooms, onions or

shallot The shallot is a cultivar group of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the difference was t ...

s, tomatoes and wine, and may also contain

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

and various herbs.

Etymology

is the

for 'hunter', and sauce chasseur shares a multilingual connection with other cuisines. In ''

The Oxford Companion to Food ''The Oxford Companion to Food'' is an encyclopedia about food. It was edited by Alan Davidson and published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued in softcover under the name ''The Penguin Companion to Food''. The second and t ...

'', Alan Davidson writes that the phrase, meaning 'huntsmen-style', occurs in many languages: "Italians say '' alla cacciatora'', Poles say ''

bigos Bigos (), often translated into English as hunter's stew, is a Polish dish of chopped meat of various kinds stewed with sauerkraut, shredded fresh cabbage and spices. It is served hot and can be enriched with additional vegetables and wine. Orig ...

'' and the French ''chasseur''." The term, according to Davidson, usually indicates the presence of forest mushrooms. The ''

Dictionnaire de l'Académie française The (; English: Dictionary of the French academy) is a French language dictionary published by the . The is an institution tasked with establishing rules for the use of the French language, the compilation of a dictionary being one of its prima ...

'' dates the term ''chasseur'' to the 12th century; the dictionary refers to its culinary use, but does not give any indication of when it was first used in that context. The earliest citation of the culinary use of the word in English given by the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' dates from the 1880s.

History

In 1865 '' Bailey's Magazine'' recorded a dish of ''poulet à la chasseur'' served in a Parisian restaurant and costing the equivalent of half a

guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

a head. In ''

Le Figaro () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, Beaumarchais (1732–1799): ''Le Barbier de Séville'', ''The Guilty Mother, La Mère coupable'', ...

'' in 1870 Eugène Morand recorded a lunch eaten by a group of army officers at which—after two types of sausage,

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

and

Bayonne Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the France–Spain border, Spanish border. It is a communes of France, commune and one of two subprefectures in France, subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments of France, departm ...

ham, fried eggs, fillet steak, and macaroni with

Parmesan Parmesan (, ) is an Italian cuisine, Italian Types of cheese#Hard cheese, hard, Types of cheese#Granular, granular cheese produced from Dairy cattle, cow's milk and aged at least 12 months. It is a Grana (cheese), grana-type cheese, along wit ...

—they concluded the savoury part of the meal with ''poulet à la chasseur''Morand, Eugène
"Choses et autres"
''Le Figaro'', 12 December 1870, p. 3 ("''Ah! quel plaisir d'être soldat!''" (), commented Morand). The dish is mentioned in the American and British press during the later years of the 19th century.

Ingredients

Chicken chasseur is prepared using sautéed chicken, served with a chasseur sauce. All the following writers specify chopped or sliced mushrooms, and

s or other types of onion, but vary as to the other ingredients of the sauce. Most recipes call for the addition of herbs: the most frequently specified are

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...

and

tarragon Tarragon (''Artemisia dracunculus''), also known as estragon, is a species of perennial herbaceous plant, herb in the family Asteraceae. It is widespread in the wild across much of Eurasia and North America and is cultivated for culinary and medic ...

; others are

basil Basil (, ; , ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' (, )), also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a hardiness (plants), tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" r ...

bay leaf The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used as a herb in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. The flavour that a bay lea ...

chervil Chervil (; ''Anthriscus cerefolium''), sometimes called French parsley or garden chervil (to distinguish it from similar plants also called chervil), is a delicate annual herb related to parsley. It was formerly called myrhis due to its volati ...

, and

thyme Thyme () is a culinary herb consisting of the dried aerial parts of some members of the genus ''Thymus (plant), Thymus'' of flowering plants in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are native to Eurasia and north Africa. Thymes have culinary, medici ...

. A dish with the English name "hunter's chicken" exists, but is unrelated to chicken chasseur. It consists of skinless and boneless chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, baked, and covered with

barbecue sauce Barbecue sauce (also abbreviated as BBQ sauce) is a sauce used as a marinade, basting, condiment, or topping for meat cooked in the barbecue cooking style, including pork, beef, and chicken. It is a ubiquitous condiment in the Southern United ...

and melted cheese."Hunter's chicken"
BBC Good Food. Retrieved 31 May 2023

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{French cuisine French chicken dishes French cuisine Wine dishes

Etymology

History

Ingredients

See also

References

Sources