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POULTRY, RAGOUT OF (another way)
This is a general recipe, and may be used to ragout poultry, pigeons, rabbits, etc. Half roast the thing which is to be dressed as a ragout. Carve it into joints, as at table, and stew in good stock, with a couple of onions, two dozen corns of allspice and black pepper, a few cloves, a piece of lemon-peel, and for some things a stick of celery, for others a couple of bay-leaves. Skim the stew, and, keeping the lid quite close, let it simmer for three-quarters of an hour or more, according to the age and size of the birds. Strain off the gravy, leaving the fowls in the stewpan to keep hot. Take off the cake of fat which will soon form, and thicken the gravy with brown roux, or butter rolled in browned flour till it is as thick and stiff as pancake batter. Add to this a glass of white wine and the squeeze of a lemon. Dish the fowls, ducks, or rabbits, or whatever your dish may be, and pour the sauce hot over them. The sauce must be well worked, and ought to be smooth, thick, and well coloured. It may be made without wine.
A template rather than a fixed recipe: the method is half-roast, joint, stew, then reduce and thicken the strained liquor. The sauce is the whole point, so treat the stewing as a way of making gravy that happens to cook the bird.
- Half roastingThe original gives no oven temperature. Twenty to thirty minutes in a hot oven is enough to colour the skin and set the juices without cooking through. The browning is what gives the finished gravy its depth; a pale bird makes a pale, flat sauce no amount of roux will fix.
- How much stockNo quantity is given. Use enough to come two-thirds up the joints in a close-fitting pan, roughly 1 to 1.5 pints for a jointed chicken. Too much liquid and you will be reducing for an hour before the sauce has any flavour.
- The spice load"two dozen corns of allspice and black pepper" may mean two dozen of each or two dozen between them; on either reading it is assertive by modern taste, though spread across a whole bird and its gravy. Tie the spices, cloves, lemon peel and bay in muslin so you can pull them out and so nothing gritty reaches the strained sauce.
- Simmering timesThree-quarters of an hour suits a modern chicken; the recipe itself allows "or more, according to the age and size of the birds". Rabbit and older fowl want 1.5 to 2 hours; young pigeon needs only 25 to 30 minutes or it turns to string.
- Skimming the fatThe original says the cake of fat "will soon form"; in practice the strained gravy has to cool for it to set. Twenty minutes' chilling makes it lift off in a sheet; a fat separator or a ladle skimmed across the surface does the job faster.
- Brown rouxEqual weights butter and flour cooked to the colour of a hazelnut shell, about 1 oz of each per pint of gravy. "Butter rolled in browned flour" is the shortcut: flour toasted dry in a pan, then worked into softened butter and whisked in in small pieces. Toasted flour thickens less than raw, so allow a little extra.
- A glass of wineA wineglassful is usually reckoned at around 2 fl oz, though the measure was never fixed. Add it with the roux and simmer a few minutes to take the rawness off; added at the last moment it tastes sharp against the spice.
- Keeping the birds hotJoints left in a dry stewpan while you work the sauce will tighten. Leave a little of the cooking liquor with them, cover, and hold over the lowest possible heat.
- YieldOne chicken, one rabbit or two ducks serves four; allow one squab per person.
Ragout is simply the French ragoût, from ragoûter, to revive the appetite, and English cookery books have long used it loosely for almost any dish of pieces stewed in a thickened, well-seasoned gravy. What marks this version is its indifference to the animal: poultry, pigeon or rabbit all go the same way, because the household cook was expected to work with whatever the poulterer, the game bag or the yard produced that week. The half-roasting step is older practice worth noticing, a way of building colour before liquid goes anywhere near the meat, and the instruction that the sauce "must be well worked" reflects a period when a smooth, glossy, properly coloured gravy was the measure of a competent kitchen. The recipe closes by noting that it may be made without wine.