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POULARDE (a la Royal)
Bone the bird. Unless the cook is experienced, this had better be done by the poulterer. Fill it with mushroom forcemeat, which will be improved by the addition of a boiled sweetbread. Truss it securely, cover it with thin slices of fat bacon, put oiled paper over this, and tie it on with twine. Put it down at some distance from a clear fire until it is heated through, then draw it nearer, and baste liberally until it is done enough. About a quarter of an hour before it is taken down remove the paper and bacon, and let the bird brown nicely. Dish it on a puree of chestnuts prepared as follows. Peel the outer rind from fifty sound Spanish chestnuts; throw them into a saucepan of hot water, and let them remain upon the fire until the inner brown skin can be easily removed. Pour the water from them, throw them into cold water, peel, and wipe them with a soft cloth. Put them into a stewpan with a pint of cold milk, and let them simmer very gently until they are quite soft. Drain them, and rub them while hot through a wire sieve. Put the pulp into a stewpan with two table-spoonfuls of milk or cream, a slice of butter, a lump of sugar, and a little pepper and salt. Stir the puree over the fire till it is quite hot, and it is ready for the capon. Time to roast the capon, about an hour and a quarter; to boil the chestnuts, varying with the quality. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A boned, stuffed roasting hen served on chestnut puree, written for a spit before an open fire. The two things that need translating are the fire and the stuffing temperature.
- Poularde and caponA poularde is a fattened young hen, a capon a castrated cockerel; this entry is titled poularde but times "the capon", so it treats the two as interchangeable. A 4–5 lb free-range chicken is the practical substitute; the boning is still best asked of a butcher.
- From spit to oven"Put it down at some distance from a clear fire" means starting the bird well back from the radiant heat so it warms through without searing, then moving it in to colour. In an oven, roast at 350F (180C) and remove the bacon and paper for the last 15 minutes to brown, exactly as written.
- Stuffed and boned means slowerA boned bird rolled round forcemeat and sweetbread is a solid mass of meat, and the stated hour and a quarter is a guide only. Cook to 165F (74C) at the centre of the stuffing, not by the clock — the recipe does not say what goes into the mushroom forcemeat, and any raw meat in it must reach that temperature.
- SweetbreadOrder veal sweetbreads in advance; they need soaking in several changes of cold water, blanching and pressing before they are boiled and chopped into the forcemeat. Lamb sweetbreads work and are easier to find.
- Fat bacon and oiled paperThin sheets of pork back fat (barding fat) do the same job, and a mild unsmoked bacon is closer to the "fat bacon" of the original than a heavily smoked streaky. Oiled paper is baking parchment brushed with oil, or simply foil, tied on with kitchen string.
- Fifty chestnutsRoughly 1½ lb (700 g) in the shell; peeled weight will be somewhat less. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts are a legitimate shortcut: skip the two peelings and simmer them straight in the pint of milk.
- The puree"A slice of butter" is about 1 oz (30 g), and "a lump of sugar" a single teaspoon — the sugar is for balance, not sweetness. A blender gives a smoother result than a wire sieve but the puree should stay thick enough to hold the bird.
- YieldFive or six as written, and the boned bird carves into neat rounds showing the forcemeat, which is the whole point of the preparation.
"A la Royale" in nineteenth-century English kitchens rarely meant anything precise; it signalled a dish elaborate enough for a formal table, and boning a bird, stuffing it and reconstructing its shape was exactly the sort of skilled labour that justified the name. Cassell's is candid that most cooks should hand the boning to the poulterer \— a reminder that the Victorian household cook worked alongside a network of specialist tradesmen rather than doing everything herself. The chestnut puree beneath is a French borrowing that had settled into English cookery, and the recipe calls for Spanish chestnuts — the ordinary English name for the species. The entry's "probable cost, uncertain" is a reminder that sweetbreads and a good capon were market-dependent luxuries.