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Puree of Fowl
597. After chopping fine and pounding the white meat of turkey or fowl, add enough of white sauce to pass it through a sieve, flavoured with lemon-peel and juice, or lemon pickle, and a little cucumber ketchup. This may be heaped in the middle of a dish and garnished with the broiled legs, or it may be served in a wall of mashed potatoes, or rice egged over and browned; if rice, strew upon the egg some fine bread-crumbs before browning.
A Victorian way of using the breast of a cooked bird: pounded meat loosened with white sauce, sieved smooth, and served inside a border of potato or rice. Quantities are left entirely to the cook, so work by texture.
- The hinge: consistencyThe puree should be thick enough to hold a heaped shape but soft enough to push through a sieve — roughly the body of stiff mashed potato. Add the white sauce a spoonful at a time; once it is slack it cannot be recovered except by more meat.
- White sauceThis means a plain white sauce of the béchamel type: butter and flour cooked together, then milk or light chicken stock. The recipe gives no proportions; add the sauce gradually to the chopped meat and stop when the mixture will just pass through a sieve, as above.
- Pounding and sievingA food processor does the chopping and pounding in seconds. Pulse rather than run it continuously, then press the paste through a fine sieve or tamis with a plastic scraper for the smooth texture the recipe is after.
- Lemon pickle and cucumber ketchupBoth were standard Georgian and Victorian store-cupboard sauces and are not commercially available in this form today. Lemon pickle was salted lemons steeped with spice; cucumber ketchup was a thin, vinegary, seasoned cucumber liquor. Grated lemon zest with juice, plus a spoonful of a sharp cucumber pickle liquid, is a reasonable substitute.
- The bird"Fowl" here is a boiling hen or a roast chicken; only the white meat is used, which is why the legs are broiled separately as garnish. The dish was designed around a bird already cooked, so leftover roast turkey or chicken suits it exactly.
- Broiled legsScore the cooked legs, brush with butter or mustard, and broil close to the heat for 5-8 minutes until the skin blisters. Legs finished with mustard and hot seasoning in this way are close to what period cooks called 'devilled', though the recipe does not use the term.
- Egging over and browningBrush the rice or potato border with beaten egg, dust with fine crumbs where rice is used, and brown in a hot oven (about 425F) for 10-15 minutes, or under the broiler for 3-4 minutes; the original names no method or temperature. Browning the border before filling the centre with the hot puree will keep the puree from drying out, though the recipe does not say in what order the dish is put together.
- Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no quantities; as a rough guide, about two cups of breast meat will make four modest servings as a first course, or two as a light main. Everything must go to table hot; the puree stiffens and dulls quickly as it cools.