Philippe, our Houseboy and Chef de Cuisine, is a bright young man with a charming innate and very direct sense of curiosity in the widest senses of the words. He came across a recipe recently which he just insisted on cooking for Bosie and me that very night.

He excelled himself - yummy. We felt that such a coup de table with a title like that, and whose first instruction is to "Truss the chickens and put them into enough hot water to cover them", simply had to be brought to a wider public. Not only will it please the more discerning palates but is easy to make and very good for you. You know you like chicken.

This eighteenth-century delight is taken from "Herefordshire and Worcestershire Country Recipes", compiled by and aptly-named Molly Perham and published in 1989 by Ravette Books who publish that wonderful 'Bluff your way in ...' series which is so useful for those with no wit, little knowledge or poor taste.

Philippe tells me the upshot is that, for four, you half-cook a trussed chicken in boiling water, rather as one might in the hot baths at the fashionable Continental spas. Then you de-harness and hack the now-blanched poor dear into four pieces, and season the cooking liquid with the juice and grated peel of a lemon. Re-immerse your chicken, come back to the boil till it is fully cooked. No blood when pricked with a skewer, or nasty diseases. Then it must be reserved in a warm place for later action.

Make a roux from one ounce each of flour and butter, and stir in a generous half-pint of the strained liquor which so exhausted the chicken. Save the rest for stock, says Philippe with an eye to our housekeeping expenses (but he still slugs his way down our wine cellar). Stir continually till it boils slowly, then stimulate it with salt, black pepper (you do grind it yourself, I trust) and cayenne pepper, or paprika if it is an Eastern European chicken. They are especially exotic we understand.

The climactic coup de grace is an eventual insertion of a large dollop of double cream stirred well in. That is all. You now lovingly pour the 'blanket' or "blanquette", as our French friends have it, of stiff white sauce over the succulent chicken and serve. The Georgian original suggests serving it with sippets, which are merely bijou cubes of stale bread deep-fried in hot oil. Mmm - something crunchy to embolden and differentiate the soft chicken in its silky sheets. To retain his figure and add colour to the whole, Bosie prefers it with broccoli. They like that sort of thing where he comes from.

I suppose that in its native Worcestershire, cider would be a good accompaniment for this dish. Since this beverage goes to Bosie's knees far too quickly, that is not such a good idea too often. I prefer a petulant Anjou or Loire wine - a Muscadet is rather a fetching number.

Philippe maintains that this is neither an expensive nor a difficult dish, and we find it has the supreme merit of being particularly satisfying in the mouth. Several young chickens, thus dressed, have gone down curiously well with our recent guests …

Copyright © "Oscar O'Lune" 11 September 2003