"The chicken Marengo is certainly the first virtual chicken in history. virtuality and its no doubt, in the sense that in the days of the battle 13,14,15 June 1800 the French had virtually nothing to eat. The fields around were Marengo raided da russi, austriaci e francesi già nel 1799, dalle rivolte contadine, poi dalle repressioni francesi anti-giacobine. L'inverno tra il 1799 e il 1800 fu uno dei peggiori, da questo punto di vista. Tutte le fonti parlano di una fame spaventosa, di campi spogliati, di vigne a cui erano stati bruciati anche i pali" da intervista al dott. Giulio Massobrio, storico e studioso della Battaglia di Marengo.
"Il 14 giungo 1800, l'epopea napoleonica entra in cucina. E lo fa per merito del Pollo alla Marengo. La leggenda ripresa, con lievi varianti, da diversi autori, compreso il nostro Pellegrino Artusi, è suggestiva. (...) Poiché gli Austriaci sono riusciti ad impadronirsi dei carri dell'Intendenza, il cuoco dello Stato Maggiore is arranged according to the eternal rule of hosts in a foreign land: it is to steal a few chickens in a barn, and everything else is at home: oil, flour, white wine, salt, pepper and mushrooms. The "free range" cut to pieces, come put in a pan with the oil-seed probably, in the Piedmont was used more than oil imported from Liguria - and after browning, cooked in white wine and a fund associated with flour. A simple dish, even so elementary that the great chefs who have come later, feel the need to enrich it.
Who "controls" Chicken Marengo today, in France or in fancy restaurants in other countries, is in the revised version of Escoffier dish: Sauteed volaille butter and olive oil, tomato sauce and demi glace, seals pastry, mushrooms, shrimp and even fried eggs. All things that were not on the battlefield and found that Napoleon did not like. " by: Massimo Alberini, 4000 years at the table, Ed Fabbri, Milano 1972, p. 98 et seq.
When I learned that my friend childhood, Charles Origo, a great gourmet cook and superfine, as well as fantastic childhood orthopedic hospital in Alexandria, where it is primary, and a volunteer in Africa whenever he can, he won a prize in a competition on gourmet chicken Marengo, not I have given peace until I showed her the recipe. And his remarks.
Just as it is handed down in our imagination, the recipe looks like the legendary brainchild of a French royal chef lasuacultura adapting to raid food from the farm houses of the plain between Alexandria and Torre Garofoli, scene of recent battle.
is that the ingredients are those of the Po Valley farm in early summer. There are mushrooms, as some mistakenly added.
Garlic, featuring French cuisine, supplants the chopped onions. Similarly
croutons should be fried in some animal fat, but the use of olive oil stresses the Mediterranean flair of the recipe.
Crayfish are those of the ditches, not yet polluted by pesticides.
eggs in certain ricette presentata fritte oppure in camicia, meglio si adattano ad una cucina "imperiale" se presentate come leggere e sottili crêpes arrotolate.
In realtà la Battaglia di Marengo, come tutte le battaglie, è stata un orrendo massacro e non credo che nessuno avesse voglia, alla fine, di fare gastronomia.
C'è però il folklore della tradizione, che cerca di mitigare le atrocità che fanno gli uomini (e allora ecco la Cesar's salad, il Bloody Mary e la bistecca alla Tartara...)
Pollo alla Marengo, l'imperatore del pollaio . (ricetta di Carlo Origo)
1 pollo ruspante, giovane e tenero (1000-1200g)
sale, black pepper oil
Ages 3-4 -
red tomatoes 2 cloves garlic, white wine
shrimp meat extract of the ditch, a dozen
broth (optional)
cognac (optional)
flour, three eggs, half a tablespoon
milk, two tablespoons
6-7 - slices of bread
parsley chicken, flamed, washed and dried, is cut into pieces, salt and pepper.
In a large saucepan or skillet, proceed to brown, carefully a few at a time, the pieces in olive oil very hot. As we
chicken skin assumes a homogeneous gold, the pieces are removed from the pan and set aside.
downs away almost all the cooking oil, leaving grease the pan clean and add the tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut into pieces.
With tomato add two cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped.
garlic, without browning, it has to characterize, with its taste, the recipe.
Add a glass of white wine and a bit of meat extract. Continue cooking the sauce thicken making. Finish cooking the chicken in the sauce.
I will ditch shrimp boiled in part, in white wine or broth, a tablespoon of cognac.
With 3 eggs, salt, flour and milk just preparing pancakes 6-7, while the slices are fried.
The Chicken Marengo is presented in the table in a serving dish, on a layer of slices of fried bread, which are lying on the rolled crepes.
the center pieces of chicken in their rich sauce, garnished with shrimp ditch. On all
hearty sprinkling of chopped parsley.
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