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Poulet En Casserole
Truss a fowl as for roasting, introducing into the body the liver and a good part of maitre d'hotel butter (see MAITRE D'HOTEL BUTTER). Put into an earthenware casserole one and a half to two ounces of butter or clarified beef dripping, and when this is melted lay in the chicken, with some finger-lengths of ham or bacon (not too fat), a small sliced carrot, two or three shallots or some young green onions, a few peppercorns, and a good bouquet garni (see BOUQUET GARNI). Put on the lid, and cook all together in the oven until the fowl is delicately coloured all over, turning and basting it occasionally. Now remove the superfluous fat, and pour in about a third of a pint of good stock and a glass of white wine, cover closely and keep it simmering gently but steadily in the oven for one and a half to two hours. When done, lift out the fowl and cut it into neat joints. Skim all the fat from the liquor, remove the bouquet garni, add a little more stock and wine, let it boil, lay in the cut-up fowl, and serve when quite hot in the dish in which it is cooked, with a serviette pinned round.
A pot-roasted chicken from the era when "casserole" meant the vessel rather than the dish. The instructions are sound; the main adjustment is for the bird itself.
- The casseroleAn earthenware casserole with a close-fitting lid — a lidded glazed stoneware or enamelled cast-iron pot does the same work. It needs to go from stovetop-warm butter to the oven and then to the table, so a Dutch oven is the natural substitute.
- "Fowl" is not a supermarket chickenIn books of this period "fowl" usually means a mature bird rather than a young broiler: tougher, leaner and better suited to long gentle cooking, which may be why the timing runs to an hour and a half to two hours. A 4-5 lb roasting chicken will likely be done in about an hour to an hour and a quarter; check the thigh joint for 165F rather than trusting the stated time, or the breast will shred.
- Oven temperaturesThe recipe gives no temperatures. For the initial colouring stage, something around 400F with the lid on, turning and basting, until the skin is pale gold; after the stock and wine go in, drop to around 325F so the liquid barely trembles. A hard simmer toughens the breast meat.
- Maitre d'hotel butterButter creamed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. "A good part" of it means several tablespoons stuffed into the cavity along with the liver, where it melts into the pan juices; nothing else is seasoning the bird from inside.
- The liquid measuresA third of an Imperial pint is a little under 7 fl oz, so about three-quarters of a US cup. A "glass" of white wine is not defined here; period usage for a wineglassful is generally reckoned at somewhere between 2 and 4 fl oz. Together that is a shallow braise, not a poach — the bird should sit in liquid, not swim.
- Degreasing twiceThe recipe skims fat before the stock goes in and again before the sauce is finished, and both matter. Chicken plus butter plus bacon leaves a great deal of fat, and the unreduced pan liquor will taste greasy rather than winey if it is left.
- FinishingJointing the bird and returning it to the boiled-down, replenished liquor is the point of the dish; the sauce is thin and clear by design, not thickened. Serve straight from the pot.
- Yield and the servietteProbably about four servings; the recipe does not say. The napkin pinned round the pot is Victorian table dress for a hot earthenware vessel — a folded towel or a trivet does the job now.
En casserole in nineteenth-century French usage described food cooked and brought to table in the same earthenware pot, and the method is the point of the dish: colour in fat under a lid, then moisten and stew slowly. Braising of this kind suits an older or leaner bird — flesh that would be dry and stringy in a roasting oven becomes tender when stewed in its own steam with wine and stock. The stuffing of maitre d'hotel butter and the bird's own liver into the cavity is a way of basting from within, and the bacon, carrot, shallots and bouquet garni are a standard aromatic base for a braise. That the finished pot is wrapped in a pinned napkin is a reminder of how far dining-room service governed the Victorian kitchen.