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Chicken in a cream sauce with mushrooms and herbs.

Poultry & duck

Poulet à l’Estragon

By Jacques Pépin

Chicken thighs and mushrooms simmer in a white-wine sauce that turns creamy with a final splash of cream. Fresh tarragon, if you choose it, adds an aniseed fragrance to the tender chicken and earthy mushrooms. This is Jacques Pépin’s version of the chicken his mother cooked, made a little richer with wine and mushrooms. Bring it to the table with rice pilaf to catch every spoonful of sauce.

Prep
Not stated
Cook
Not stated
Total
Not stated
Serves4
Jump to recipe ↓Sur La Table ↗

Ingredients

Chicken in cream

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the thighs in one layer and brown over high heat for about 2½ minutes on each side.
  2. Add the sliced mushrooms and sprinkle with flour. Turn the chicken with tongs to distribute the flour. Stir in the wine and water, mix well and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper. Cover, reduce the heat and cook gently for 25 minutes.
  3. Add the cream, bring to a boil and boil uncovered for about 1 minute.
  4. Serve with the chopped tarragon scattered over, if using.

Equipment

Large saucepan with lid; Tongs

Notes

  • Tarragon: add the chopped herb at the finish if you want its fresh aniseed fragrance. Leaving it out follows the optional wording of this selected recipe.
  • Serving: rice pilaf was his mother’s usual accompaniment and makes a good way to catch the sauce.
  • Portions: the original batch is six thighs for four people. Pépin allows one and a half thighs per person as a generous main-course portion.
  • Planning: the Method gives about five minutes of browning, 25 minutes of gentle covered cooking and a final minute with cream. Preparation and bringing the liquids to the boil need extra time; no complete total is stated.

Photos

1 photo
Chicken in a cream sauce with mushrooms and herbs.Finished dishChicken in mushroom and tarragon cream sauce

Poulet à l’Estragon

Recipe photos

About this dish

Chicken in cream is a speciality of Bourg-en-Bresse, Jacques Pépin’s birthplace. In The Apprentice, he remembers it as the great dish of the Hôtel de l’Europe, where the local Bresse bird was served in a rich cream sauce with rice flavoured with onion and thyme. His tarragon variation gives the dish its poulet à l’estragon name.

The recipe here comes from Poulets & Légumes and begins closer to home. His mother used a whole cut-up chicken, water, a little flour and cream; Pépin adds white wine and mushrooms and chooses thighs, which he considers the best part of the bird. The flour disperses in the pan before the liquid goes in, giving the sauce body without a separate roux. Cream finishes it, and chopped tarragon adds its fresh fragrance at the table. The herb is optional, as it is in Pépin’s recipe.

Recipe and cooking notes adapted from Sur La Table.