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Roasted Capons with Noodles
Prepare a capon, as for braised capons, financiere, covering the breast with slices of bacon-fat instead of larding them. Wrap some brown paper round the capon, and roast it before a good fire. When it is done move it from the spit, and take off the bacon, Moisten some noodles with German sauce, and add to this some Parmesan cheese and chicken glaze. Place the noodles on a dish two inches in thickness, put the capon on them, and serve with German sauce. Stewed Capon, French Style Pluck, singe and draw a capon, wipe it thoroughly both inside and out, rub it well with lemon and truss; tie some slices of bacon fat over, put it into a saucepan with an onion cut in slices, pour over one breakfast cupful of good stock or gravy, and stew gently on the side of the fire until the bird is done. Place it on a dish, and serve.
Two recipes have run together in this entry: a spit-roasted capon on noodles, and a short stewed capon beneath it. Both assume a hearth, a butcher who sells capons, and a cook who already has sauce allemande on the stove.
- The birdA capon is a castrated cockerel, fattened for tender, well-marbled breast meat, and it is a special-order item from a poultry butcher today. A 5-7 lb roasting chicken behaves much the same way; a small turkey is closer in size but drier.
- German sauceThis is sauce allemande: a chicken velouté enriched with an egg-yolk and cream liaison, sharpened with lemon, and never allowed to boil after the yolks go in or it will curdle. It is the hinge of the dish and needs to be made before the bird comes off the heat.
- Chicken glazeGlace de volaille is chicken stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A spoonful stirred into the noodles is doing the work a stock cube pretends to; a heavily reduced homemade stock is the honest substitute.
- Bacon-fat and brown paperThe slices are fatback or the fat cut from bacon, tied over the breast to baste it, not smoked streaky. The brown paper is a shield against radiant fire heat, the same job foil does now over the breast in an oven.
- Roasting before the fireSpit-roasting means direct radiant heat with constant turning and basting. In an oven, roast at 375-400F, remove the barding fat for the last 20 minutes to colour the skin, and pull the bird at 165F in the thickest part of the thigh.
- The noodle bedTwo inches of noodles under the bird is a serving platter's worth, not a garnish. Use a broad flat egg noodle, dress it while hot, and hold the Parmesan back until the last toss so it does not seize into strings.
- Breakfast cupfulIn late nineteenth-century usage a breakfast cup runs roughly 8-10 fl oz. For the stewed version, that is a shallow braise rather than a poach, so cover the pan and turn the bird once.
- On the side of the fireThis means the cooler edge of the hearth: a bare simmer with the surface barely trembling. Hard boiling will tighten and shred the breast long before the legs are done.
- YieldNeither recipe says. A capon at this size, with the noodles, serves six to eight.
Oscar Tschirky was never formally the chef of the Waldorf, he was its maître d'hôtel, but his 1896 Cook Book collected the kitchen's working repertoire for the American home, and it is thoroughly French in outlook. That shows here: the recipe assumes you already know how to braise a capon financière, that sauce allemande is standing ready, and that a spit is a normal way to cook a bird. Capon itself was a luxury bird of the period, castrated young so it grew heavier and fatter than a cockerel, and it appears repeatedly in the book as the sort of thing ordered for a dinner party.