If you’re looking for a new recipe for roasting a whole chicken, you could do a lot worse than trying one of Meryl Streep’s favorite recipes from iconic chef, Julia Child: Poulet poele a l’estragon, or pan-fried chicken with tarragon. Streep revealed this top pick in a 2009 Glamour magazine interview where she explained how she thriftily stretches Child’s one chicken into five total dishes to last her throughout a busy week on set.
Why Julia Child? Streep played Child (a legend playing a legend) in Nora Ephron’s delightful 2009 biographical comedy “Julie & Julia” (no list of great food movies would be complete without it). For those who haven’t seen it, the film also stars Amy Adams as the late Julie Powell, a home cook-turned-food blogger-turned author who made it her mission to cook every recipe in Julie Child’s 1961 cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in a single year.
The movie is based on a merging of both Powell’s 2005 book, “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen” and Child’s own autobiography, “My Life in France,” (which is one of 15 books every food lover should read). The film jumps between the two women’s timelines to highlight their parallels, near intersection, and ultimately, their divergence. Whether you’re new to the movie or it’s your 300th viewing, it’s sure to leave you itching to try your hand at Child’s take on French cooking and Streep’s fave is a great place to start.
Tips for making Julia Child’s tarragon chicken
Child’s recipe calls for a whole chicken — she recommends around 3 lbs. But you can skip her recommendation to wash the chicken first, as the CDC says that washing chicken before cooking is a bad idea. She seasons the inside of her bird with salt, ground pepper, butter, and four sprigs of fresh tarragon or ½ teaspoon of dried tarragon. Aromatic and herbaceous, tarragon’s flavor profile is complex and unmistakable, but here, it is pretty subtle and not overpowering, with only hints of licorice. She then coats the outside of the chicken with the remaining butter.
Browning the outer skin of the chicken with a mixture of butter and oil on the stovetop (in the same casserole pan in which she would roast it), Child then pops it into a 325 degrees Fahrenheit oven along with carrots and onions (and the aforementioned sprigs of fresh tarragon), covering it with foil before roasting for a little over an hour. But it’s Child’s browning process (ten to fifteen minutes of searing) that is said to really lock in the flavor, resulting in a sumptuously tender and juicy chicken. Hot Tip: Try using ghee instead of butter to avoid accidentally burning your butter during this process.
If you have a busy work week, like three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep, you can use the leftovers in a variety of ways, like adding more fresh tarragon to bring out the best in a chicken salad.
