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Poultry, Ragout Of
This recipe may be followed with almost any kind of poultry or game. Partially roast the bird in the usual way. When it is half cooked, take it down, and, if, liked, divide it into joints, or it may be stewed whole. Put it into a stewpan with any bones or trimmings that may be at hand, a large onion stuck with two cloves, the thin rind of a quarter of a lemon rolled, half a tea-spoonful of allspice, half a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, as much stock--or, failing this, water--as will cover the ingredients, and a little salt if required. Simmer all very gently till the fowl is done enough, then pour off the liquor, and keep the bird hot. Strain the gravy, and skim the fat from it. Dissolve two ounces of butter in a stewpan, and mix smoothly with it as much flour as will make it into a paste, add gradually the hot liquor, a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice, and a glass of port or claret. Let it boil a minute or two. Put the meat on a dish, pour the hot gravy over it, garnish with toasted sippets, and serve very hot. If liked, chilli vinegar can be substituted for the lemon-juice. The remains of cold poultry may be served in the same way, but the meat will not be so succulent as it would be if it were only partially roasted before it was stewed. Time, varying with the size and age of the bird. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A two-stage method: the bird is roasted until half done, then finished in a gently simmered aromatic broth whose liquor becomes the sauce. The point of the partial roast is browning and rendered flavour, so do not skip it.
- Half-roastingThe book gives no temperature; a hot oven of around 400F is a reasonable modern equivalent. Roast for roughly a third to half the total time you would normally give the bird — about 20 minutes for a 3 lb chicken, 10-12 for a pheasant or a pair of partridges. You want colour on the skin, not cooked meat.
- A glass of wineIn Victorian cookery books a wineglass is about 2 fl oz (a quarter cup); a tumbler is larger. Half a cup of port or claret will not spoil the sauce if you prefer a fuller flavour.
- The rouxTwo ounces of butter takes roughly two ounces (a scant half cup) of flour. Cook the paste a minute before adding liquid, and add the hot stock gradually or it will lump. This quantity thickens about a pint of gravy to a coating sauce.
- Whole spiceHalf a teaspoon each of allspice berries and black peppercorns, loose in the pan, are tedious to strain out cleanly. Tie them with the lemon rind in muslin and lift the bundle out before you pour off the liquor; the cloves come out with the onion they are stuck into.
- Simmer, do not boilThe instruction "very gently" is the hinge. A rolling boil tightens poultry fibres and clouds the liquor with emulsified fat, and the whole method depends on a clear, skimmable gravy.
- Doneness"Done enough" now means 165F at the thigh joint. A jointed 3 lb chicken needs about 25-35 minutes in the stock; an older bird or a whole one, up to an hour.
- Toasted sippetsTriangles of bread, crust removed, toasted or fried in butter and set round the edge of the dish. Add them at the table — they go sodden within minutes of meeting the gravy.
- Chilli vinegarA Victorian storecupboard staple: red chillies steeped in vinegar for a fortnight. A teaspoon of a plain hot pepper vinegar stands in for it; it replaces the lemon juice, not the wine.
- YieldFive or six as written, which assumes a substantial bird plus other dishes. One 3-4 lb chicken realistically serves four.
A ragout — from the French ragoûter, to revive the appetite — was by the late nineteenth century less a specific dish than a technique: meat stewed in its own well-flavoured, thickened gravy. It is a formula, applicable to "almost any kind of poultry or game," which mattered in households where what arrived from the poulterer or the shooting party was unpredictable. The recipe also admits cold poultry, though the text is explicit that cold meat will be less succulent than a partially roasted bird; the aromatics — clove-stuck onion, lemon rind, allspice, whole pepper, a glass of claret — are the standard English repertoire for making reheated meat taste deliberate. Chilli vinegar as an alternative to lemon juice reflects the enduring popularity of the spiced vinegars and store sauces that filled Victorian larders.