Old-fashioned chicken fricassee with wine-flavored cream sauce, onions and mushrooms

Cut the chicken into nine pieces: drumsticks whole, thighs in half, breasts in half and boned. Keep the wings, spine, neck and innards for stock. Dry the chicken.

Dice the carrots, onion and celery.

Melt the butter in a casserole dish over medium heat.

Add the vegetables and cook slowly about five minutes until softened but not browned, then push them to one side.

Add the chicken and turn it every minute for three to four minutes, without colouring it beyond a golden yellow.

Lower the heat and cook very slowly for 10 minutes, turning the chicken once halfway. It should swell and stiffen without changing colour.

Bring the chicken stock to a boil.

Mix the flour with salt and white pepper and sprinkle it over all sides of the chicken so it meets the butter.

Cook four minutes, rotating the pieces halfway.

Off the heat, pour on the boiling chicken stock and shake the pan to blend the flour into the liquid, then add the vermouth.

Submerge the chicken, add the thyme, bay leaf and parsley sprigs, taste and add salt and pepper.

Bring to a simmer, cover and drop the heat until only wisps of steam and a stray bubble show. Cook 25 to 30 minutes until the chicken is tender.

Drop the pearl onions briefly into boiling water so the skins come off easily, then peel them.

Put the onions in a frying pan with chicken stock, butter, salt, thyme, parsley and a third of a bay leaf, cover and simmer 40 to 50 minutes, shaking the pan now and then.

Slice the mushrooms. Bring water, pepper, lemon juice and butter to a boil in a saucepan, add the mushrooms, cover and boil five minutes, tossing frequently.

Check the chicken: the drumsticks should be tender and the juices should run clear when pricked. Remove the nine pieces, the parsley and the bay leaf.

Simmer the cooking liquid two to three minutes while skimming the fat, adding the cooking juices from the mushroom pan and the onion pan.

Raise the heat and boil rapidly to reduce to three quarters of a pint, thick enough to coat a spoon well. Turn the heat off.

Mix the egg yolks and heavy cream in a bowl.

Remove the layer of fat from the sauce, then temper the yolks by whisking in the hot sauce a tablespoon at a time, then a ladle at a time.

Bring the sauce to a boil in a clean saucepan and boil one minute, then add salt, a few drops of lemon juice and a pinch of nutmeg and pass it through a fine sieve.

Arrange the chicken in the cleaned casserole with the onions and mushrooms, pour the sauce over and return the carrots for colour.

Cover and simmer very slowly five minutes to reheat.