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POULARDE (a la Stamboul)
Draw the bird carefully, and wipe it out with a damp cloth. Boil half a pound of best rice till it is tender, then drain the liquid from it, and lay the grain on a sieve before the fire to swell. Moisten part of it slightly with a little highly-seasoned veal stock, and fill the bird with it. Truss it firmly and securely, cover with thin slices of bacon, fasten oiled paper over this, and lay the bird down to a clear fire. Baste liberally, and a quarter of an hour before it is taken down remove the paper and bacon, and let the bird brown nicely. Moisten the remainder of the rice with veal stock, place it on a hot dish, and lay the poularde upon it. Garnish the dish with slices of lemon, or fresh barberries if they can be had. Probable cost, variable. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A spit-roasted stuffed hen from the era when "a clear fire" meant an open hearth and a rotating jack. Translated to an oven, it is a straightforward barded roast chicken with rice inside and out.
- What a poularde isA poularde is a young hen fattened for the table and not yet laying, sold in France at around 4-5 lb. A good free-range or air-chilled roasting chicken of that weight is the practical substitute; the "draw the bird" step is already done for you at any modern butcher.
- Fire to oven"Lay the bird down to a clear fire" means spit-roasting in front of glowing coals with a dripping pan beneath. In an oven, roast at 375F. A 4-5 lb stuffed bird needs roughly 1 hour 45 minutes; the paper and bacon come off for the last 15 minutes exactly as written, to brown the skin.
- The doneness that mattersBecause the cavity is packed with rice, the stuffing insulates the interior. Take the temperature of the stuffing itself as well as the thigh joint: both should read 165F. The original gives no guidance on doneness.
- Oiled paperPeriod cooks used kitchen paper brushed with oil or butter to shield the breast. Parchment does the same job; foil works but traps steam, so tent it loosely rather than wrapping tight.
- Half a pound of riceAbout 1 1/4 cups uncooked, which swells to enough to fill the bird and make the bed underneath. Long-grain rice suits the dish; boil it in salted water until just tender, drain hard, and let it dry and separate. Drying "before the fire" simply means spreading it out to steam off surface moisture — a low oven or a warm counter is enough.
- Veal stockA pale, gelatinous stock made from veal bones, and the backbone of Victorian sauce work. A good unsalted chicken stock reduced by a third gives similar body. "Highly-seasoned" here means well salted and peppered, with a hint of nutmeg or mace if you want the period flavour.
- BarberriesThe dried sour red berries (zereshk) still central to Persian rice cookery, and available from Middle Eastern grocers. They are the more interesting garnish of the two offered; scatter them over the rice bed. Dried cranberries are a blunter stand-in.
- YieldThe original's five or six servings holds up with a bird of this size, given the quantity of rice serving as both stuffing and accompaniment.
Stamboul is the old European rendering of Istanbul, and in nineteenth-century restaurant French "à la Stamboul" gestured eastward, toward the Ottoman pilaf as filtered through Parisian kitchens. Cassell's, compiled for middle-class British households in the 1870s and after, collected these garnish names wholesale from the professional repertoire, which is why a dictionary aimed at domestic cooks carries an entry with an Ottoman title, a French bird and an English hearth. The barberry garnish is the most genuinely Eastern thing in it: sour red zereshk remains a fixture of Iranian rice cookery. The recipe also preserves the older technique of barding — covering lean breast meat with bacon and paper so it does not dry before the legs are done — which the oven has largely made unnecessary but which still works.