[Retro Recipe Monday] Boiled Chicken With Parsley Sauce

So, as I'm pretty sick of Thoughts on Buffets, I'm sure you are too. Let's move it along to Grand Diplome Cooking Course, published in 1971 during the hay day of overly complicated cooking techniques, a la Julia Childs. It's not that most of this stuff is strange or weird to our modern palate, it's just that we all work in one fashion or another and the idea of doing this whole thing on like a Tuesday seems daunting. Also boiled? Eeeeeeh . . .

Boiled Chicken with Parsley Sauce
5 lb fowl or roasting chicken
1 large carrot, quartered
1 large onion, quartered
2 stalks celery (optional)
bouquet garni
6 peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon salt
cold water
1/4 pound sliced bacon (for garnish)

Parsley sauce
1 large bunch of fresh parsley
2 cups milk
1 bay leaf
1 blade of mace
6 peppercorns
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper

This recipe is an excellent example of the first method of boiling. Serves 6 people.

Method
Set the bird on its back in a large saucepan. Surround it with vegetables, bouquet garni, peppercorns and salt. For a fowl, pour in enough water barely to cover; for a roasting chicken add enough to just cover the thighs. Put lid on pan and bring slowly to a boil. Simmer fowl 2 hours and roasting chicken 1 1/4 hours or until tender and no pink juice runs out when thigh is pierced with a fork. Turn bird over from time to time. When cooked allow to cool slightly in the pain.

To prepare sauce, remove parsley sprigs from stalks, reserving them and wash well. Boil sprigs for 7 minutes in salted water, drain, squeeze dry and rub through a strainer to make 1 tablepoon parsley puree.

Infuse milk by heating it almost to boiling and keeping hot for 7 minutes with bay leaf, mace, peppercorns and parsley stalks; then strain it. Melt butter and when foaming, remove from heat and stir in the flour. Pour on milk and bring to a boil, stirring until sauce thickens. Simmer 2 minutes, add parsley puree and season. Keep warm. Cook bacon until crisp and drain it on paper towel.

Drain chicken, carve (discarding the skin from fowl), and arrange on a platter. Spoon over some of the sauce, serving the rest separately, and garnish the dish with bacon. Serve with boiled rice or mashed potatoes.