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Fowl, Ragout Of
Boil down the inferior parts, bones, etc., of a couple of roast fowls, and cut the joints into neat pieces as for a fricassee. Stew with the trimmings an onion quartered, a couple of shallots, one blade of mace, some lean bits of ham, and a bunch of herbs. Cover with stock or water, and boil very gently till all the nourishment is extracted. The bones should be crushed before beginning to boil. Put a piece of butter into a stewpan and let it melt; add flour sufficient to absorb the butter, strain the liquor from the bones into it, and stir over the fire for a few minutes. Season with pepper and salt. Place the pieces of fowl nicely in the gravy, pour in a table-spoonful of lemon-juice, and about a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar. Let it get hot, but it should not boil. Serve with the gravy poured over, and a garnish of croutons. Time, one hour to stew trimmings, half an hour to stew fowl. Probable cost, 9d., exclusive of the fowl. Sufficient for seven or eight persons.
A thrift dish built on two leftover roast fowls: the carcasses make the stock, the good joints are reheated in the resulting sauce. The only real technical demand is keeping the finished ragout below a simmer.
- Do not let it boilThe cooked fowl is already tender; boiling it in the sauce shrinks the fibres and turns the flour-thickened gravy greasy. Bring the sauce to a bare quiver, slip in the joints, and hold at around 170F/75C until heated through, 8-10 minutes for pieces off a roast bird.
- The two conflicting timesThe two times sit awkwardly: the headnote allows half an hour for the fowl, while the instruction says it should not boil. Treat the half hour as the outside limit for a whole batch of large joints held very gently; there is little benefit in going that long with modern chicken.
- Fowl means an older birdA Victorian roasting fowl was a mature laying hen with far more flavour in the frame than a supermarket broiler. Two roast chicken carcasses will work, but consider adding a wing tip or two and a little extra ham to give the stock some body.
- Crushing the bonesCrushing the bones matters to the sauce: break the carcasses up with the back of a heavy knife or a mallet before they go in the pot so more gelatine is released; whole frames tend to give thinner liquor.
- Blade of maceA blade is one flake of the dried aril from around a nutmeg, roughly equal to a quarter-teaspoon of ground mace. Use the whole blade if you have it and fish it out with the herbs; ground mace clouds the strained stock.
- Bunch of herbsThe standard Victorian bundle is parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string. Nothing exotic is intended.
- The butter and flour"Flour sufficient to absorb the butter" is a roux by eye, near equal weights: about 1 oz each will thicken a pint of stock to sauce consistency. Cook it a minute or two before the liquid goes in, then strain the stock in hot and whisk.
- Lemon and sugarA tablespoon of juice and a teaspoon of sugar are seasoning, not sweetening; they sharpen a long-reduced stock. The recipe adds them with the fowl before it is warmed through; taste before committing to the full amount.
- Yield and croutonsSeven or eight servings assumes the ragout as one dish among several. Two roast chickens picked over will realistically feed four to five as a main course. The croutons are triangles of bread fried in butter, arranged round the edge just before serving so they stay crisp.
A ragout, from the French rago u00fbter, to revive the appetite, was one of the English answers to the question of what to do with yesterday's roast. The cost is sometimes quoted as ninepence "exclusive of the fowl" precisely because the fowl was assumed to be already paid for and already cooked. The method — extract everything from the bones, thicken the liquor, warm the good meat through in it — is the same logic that produced fricassee, mince, croquettes and rissoles. It reflects a kitchen where a large joint or a pair of birds was expected to appear at three or four meals in descending order of grandeur.