Last night presented another opportunity to play with one of my recently-received gifts—Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One, by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, originally published in 1961.  I don't know much about French cuisine and had specifically requested this book, thinking it'd be a good starting point.  (Now that I have the book, I need a French tutor to teach me how to pronounce the names of the foods.  Maybe you could also teach me how to insert the various accents that are missing from the type below.  Any volunteers?  I'll cook for you.)

Last night I wanted something fast, easy and relatively inexpensive.  Many people write-off chicken as a tasteless, boring meat . . . likely because it's most often overcooked.  I wanted to see what Julia Child and French cuisine could do with it.  I also wanted to play with my new boning knife.  So I bought a whole chicken and opened up my new book.  Here's what Ms. Child had to say about raw, boneless, skinless chicken breast, called a "supreme" in French: "A supreme may be poached in butter in a covered casserole a blanc, or sautéed or broiled with butter a brun.  It is never, in good French cooking, simmered in a liquid."

Butter's good, I thought to myself . . . anything poached in butter's got to be good.  The master recipe is "Breast of Chicken with Cream" . . . and it's followed immediately by a variation that includes paprika and onions.  I had paprika, but no onions . . . and I wanted a little color in the sauce . . . so I made a hybrid of the master recipe and the first variation by throwing in some paprika.

My one complaint about the recipe is that the breasts took much longer to poach than the recipe suggested . . . about 15 minutes instead of the 6-8 minutes stated in the recipe.  The recipe instructed to "flatten the supremes lightly" and, perhaps I didn't flatten them enough . . . thicker breasts=more cooking time.  At any rate, everything else about the recipe and the dish was excellent.  The breasts were tender and juicy.   The sauce was the star of the show.  It's simple—stock (I used chicken), Madeira, heavy cream, salt, pepper and a bit of lemon juice—but exceptional.  The Madeira is, I believe, what really makes the sauce distinctive.  I'll definitely be trying the other variations to the master recipe in the coming months, so stay tuned.  Oh, yeah, on the advice of my local wine pusher, I paired the chicken with the excellent, crisp, fresh 2005 Alphonse Mellot "Les Penitents" Chardonnay ($17) from the Liore Valley in France . . . a wine I would definitely buy again.