Chicken La Tulipe

By Jonathan Reynolds

Updated Dec. 23, 2020

Chicken La Tulipe
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Total Time
1 hour 45 minutes
Rating
4(439)
Comments
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Jonathan Reynolds brought this recipe to The Times in 2000, from the New York restaurant La Tulipe. He thought it a perfect dish for a man to cook for a woman. (Whether that is also true for men cooking for men and women cooking for women, he said he didn’t know, so we tested it out: It does.) The morels and Cognac are wildly sophisticated additions to what otherwise might be a plain roasted chicken, making the dish an easy, stylish win for newish cooks interested in making an impression on a sweetheart or someone who might become one. Make the cooking “appear effortless,” Mr. Reynolds wrote. “Pour things from a great height. Think Fred Astaire, not one of those grunting tennis players.”

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Ingredients

Yield:2 servings
  • 1½ounces dried morels
  • 2tablespoons Cognac
  • 2tablespoons butter, divided
  • 1¼cups light cream or creame frache, divided
  • 13½-pound chicken, rinsed (neck, giblets and liver removed)
  • 1teaspoon salt, divided in half
  • Pinch of cayenne
  • ¼teaspoon pepper
  • ¼cup dry white wine
Ingredient Substitution Guide
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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Preheat oven to 450 degrees and let morels soak in Cognac 15 minutes. Drain, reserving liquid.

  2. Step 2

    Saute morels in 1 tablespoon butter for 5 minutes; then add ½ cup light cream and reduce by half. Stir in ½ teaspoon salt and the cayenne.

  3. Step 3

    Rub chicken with remaining butter and sprinkle with remaining salt and the pepper. Spoon morels into the body cavity. Roast chicken on one side for 15 minutes, baste and then roast on the other side 15 minutes and baste again. Finally, roast it breast side up for 20 minutes.

  4. Step 4

    Remove chicken from the oven. Throw away most of the fat from the pan, add the wine and mushroomy Cognac, deglazing, and flambe immediately. Reduce over high heat.

  5. Step 5

    Shake morels and juices from the chicken into the pot, add ¾ cup light cream and simmer for 5 minutes, until thickened. Taste for seasoning.

  6. Step 6

    Cut the chicken into 8 serving pieces, arrange them on the platter and pour the morel sauce over them.

Ratings

4 out of 5
439 user ratings
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Comments

Alexandra

This version is unnecessarily complicated when it can be done with chicken pieces in one pan without fuss. It's a classic French dish, with morels added when one has them or can afford them. Use thym, a bit of bouillon added with the morels (home made is better but a cube will do) and finish off with the cream. One can soak the morels with cognac, sure, but the bouillon will do just fine and avoid the problem of flambé inside.

Sam Sifton

Not a typo, but some dried morels can take more than the 2 tablespoons called for, absolutely. I trust you added more to soften them up!

John Golden

Light cream is not the cream that floats to the top. It's heavier than half and half but lighter than heavy cream and somewhat thinner. I think it's 20% butterfat compared to 38 % for heavy whipping cream; half and half is generally 12% butterfat. It's rarely available. Whole Foods, however, has the 365 brand light cream. In England it's called single cream. I always think it's a waste when full heavy cream, especially raw cream, is so much better.

meinmunich

So very delicious! Paired well with colcannon with leeks.

Smallfat Dog

Wonderful flavor; I found that 3T of cognac wasn’t nearly enough for my mixed dried mushrooms, used ½ and ½. Did not have enough juice for basting. Served with garlic mashed potatoes. Wonderful flavor!

Brooke B

Soak motels in 2 tbsn cognac/brandy plus 1/4 cup water Sauté morels in butter. Add wine. Add morel liquid

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