If I were home, I'd copy the recipe out of a 1950's Gourmet Cookbook for you! My mother used to make this - chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, cognac - can't remember what else but it was delicious.

I used to make this for DH, who particularly liked it. I was just thinking the other day it's been a long time and I should resurrect the recipe!

From Mrs Beeton's Simple Cookery in Colour:

Chicken Marengo

2 1/2 cups of Espagnole Sauce (recipe follows)

1 chicken, skinned and cut up into pieces

olive oil for frying

2 large ripe tomatoes

salt and pepper

1/2 glass of sherry (optional)- sherry glasses aren't very big so I'd say 2 tablespoons would be ample

12 button musheooms

12 olives, stoned

Extra mushrooms and olives to garnish

Fry chicken pieces in olive oil until golden brown. Remove from pan and drain well. Lightly brown mushrooms for stew and for garnish and set aside.

Sieve tomatoes into a heavy stewing pan. Add Espagnole sauce, and heat together. Add chicken pieces, mushrooms and olives and sherry, if used. Season to taste. Simmer gently, covered, until tender. This will take one to one and a quarter hours. Serve garnished with more mushrooms and olives.

Espagnole sauce:

1 small carrot, peeled and sliced thinly

2 oz (by weight) of chopped mushrooms

2 oz by weight lean ham or bacon, chopped

1 oz lard or other fat

3 level tablespoons all purpose flour

2 1/2 cups beef or veal stock

6 peppercorns

1 bay leaf

5 fl oz tomato pulp/crushed canned tomatoes

2 1/2 fl oz sherry (optional)

Brown carrot, bacon and mushrooms gently in the fat. Add flour and cook until golden brown. Add the stock slowly, stirring the whole time, then add the peppercorns and bay leaf. Simmer gently for about half an hour, then add the tomato pulp. Continue simmering for another half an hour. Strain the sauce and add the sherry if using.

Thanks for the reminder :-)

Wow, talk about strolling down memory lane! That recipe tickled some long-forgotten memory cells so I dragged out my very first cookbook printed in 1963 - "Good Housekeeping Cookbook" that my MIL gave me when we were first married and sure enough, there it was and I'm sure I probably made it at least once. The recipe is simpler than the one above so I'm not going to copy it unless you really think you'd want it. But in the meantime, I was reading some other recipes, golden oldies that I'd forgotten about but were very "in" back then, here's a list: Country Captain, Chicken Chasseur, Chicken Cacciatore, Coq au Vin, Chicken Kiev, and of course, Chicken Fricassee, the latter I don't think I ever made but I'm sure I've done the rest, even now I occasionally do Chicken Cacciatore.

Thanks, Colleen!! That's a different version of the recipe than I've seen, and it sounds very good!

It's one of DH's favourites :-)

Here is Julia's version. I have made this before and it's yummy (except for the eggs :-).

Napoleon's Chicken

Look what just appeared in the NYTimes Cooking section today! A recipe by French Chef Pierre Franey!

Here it is!

• 1 chicken, 3 pounds, cut into serving pieces
• Salt to taste, if desired
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1½ cups thinly sliced mushrooms, about 1/2 pound
• ½ cup finely chopped onion
• ½ teaspoon finely minced garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried
• ½ cup dry white wine
• 2 cups cored and cubed red ripe tomatoes, or use canned tomatoes
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• ½ cup chicken broth
• 2 sprigs fresh parsley

• PREPARATION
  1. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper to taste.
  2. Heat the butter and oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces skin side down. Cook until golden brown on one side, about five minutes. Turn the pieces and cook on the other side about two minutes. Pour off the fat from the skillet.
  3. Scatter the mushrooms over the chicken. Stir to distribute. Add the onion, garlic, bay leaf and thyme and cook about five minutes.
  4. Add the wine and scrape the bottom of the skillet with a wooden spoon to dissolve the brown particles that cling to the bottom of the pan. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken broth and parsley. Bring to the boil. Cover and cook 10 minutes. Serve with rice and a tossed green salad.

I agree - the NYT recipe is almost identical to the way I make Cacciatore.

There are a zillion Chicken Marengo recipes. The only way I've ever had cacciatore was made with cutlets. The only way I've ever had marengo was made with bone in pieces. I don't know if this is standard as I only have my own experience, here, which isn't very broad, especially as I don't care for cacciatore and don't make or order it (I don't mind eating it as a guest).

Traditional Chicken Marengo is served with fried eggs and crayfish, as well as journey biscuits or toast.

The legend is that it was made for Napoleon after the battle of Marengo, but food scholars say that there wouldn't have been tomatoes available. I've read that there were no tomatoes in the earliest printed versions. Tomatoes weren't a big feature in the family recipe I'm supposed to be resurrecting. There's a book about it (I think more about Napoleon, the battle and the characters than the chicken, though I haven't read it).

The Old Foodie has a recipe from the mid-1800's which sounds interesting and equally inauthentic to the earlier bistro recipes. ;)

Why wouldn't tomatoes be available?

Right or not, this one sounds tasty...

http://mariakelhistoire.over-blog.com/2017/02/la-veritable-recette-du-poulet-marengo.html

They give 2 versions. I like the thought or the crayfish and the garlic/anchovy mix in the sauce for great flavour. The others all sound a bit boring.

IC, I don't know for sure. I don't even know the seminal source. The references about tomatoes which I've read said that they became widely used in Italian cooking in the late 1800's, which is also when canning improved. It may just be that they wouldn't have been plentiful and would have been out of season. They were in Italy before 1600.

The legend--which most agree is false--is that Napoleon's famous chef (who the historically minded say didn't work for him at the time of the battle) scrounged the countryside for ingredients.

If you forego the legend and agree with those who say it was a dish served in bistros to celebrate the (dubious) victory, there's still the issue that tomatoes don't appear in the early written versions of the recipe. That's not proof that they weren't there, but the recipes with tomatoes come from the late 1800's, same as the prevalence of tomatoes in so many other dishes.

P.S., I don't care about "right", but the relative I'm trying to recreate this for doesn't remember any tomatoes.

Well, in your case, I'd go for pleasing the eater! I've learned a lot about the hostory of the tomato too! I think you're right - there might have been tomatoes in Paris in France at the time... but perhaps in italy more widespread..... what matters is that your dish is a success!