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Fowl, Duck, Game, Hare: Pollastro
No. 136. Pollastro alla Lorenese (Fowl) Ingredients: Fowl, butter, parsley, lemon, small onions, bread crumbs.
Cut up a fowl and put it into a frying-pan with two ounces of butter, one onion cut up and a sprig of chopped parsley, salt and pepper; put it on the fire and cook it, but turn the pieces several times; then take them out and roll them whilst hot in bread crumbs, and fry them. Serve cocks' combs, kidneys or with cut lemons.
No. 137. Pollastro in Fricassea al Burro (Fowl) Ingredients: Fowl, butter, fat bacon, ham, mushrooms, truffles, herbs, spice, gravy.
Cut up a fowl and cook it in a fricassée of butter, bacon, ham, herbs, mushrooms, truffles, spice, and good gravy or stock. Serve in its own gravy.
No. 138. Pollastro in istufa di Pomidoro (Braised Fowl) Ingredients: Fowl, bacon, ham, bay leaf, spice, garlic, Burgundy, tomatoes.
Braise a fowl with bits of fat bacon, ham, a bay leaf, a clove of garlic with one cut in it, a pinch of spice, and a glass of Burgundy.
Only leave the garlic in for five minutes. When cooked serve with tomato sauce (No. 9).
Three short fowl recipes written for cooks who already knew the proportions; only the first gives any measurement at all. The chief adjustment is the bird itself.
- "Fowl" is not a broilerA fowl in 1901 was a mature laying hen, 4-5 lb, with tough dark meat that wanted an hour or more of gentle cooking. A supermarket chicken of the same weight will be tender in 35-45 minutes of braising, so check early or the meat shreds and dries.
- No. 136 is cooked twiceThe pieces are first stewed in butter with onion and parsley, then crumbed and fried. Take the frying stage to colour only -- a minute or two a side in hot fat -- since the chicken is already done and a long second cooking gives you dry meat under a dark crust. Crumb while the pieces are still hot and damp so the crumbs adhere without egg.
- The garnishCocks' combs and cockerel kidneys were standard restaurant garniture and are effectively unobtainable now. The cut lemon is the part worth keeping; it is what the crumbed, buttery chicken actually needs.
- "Fricassea al burro" means no white sauceDespite the name, No. 137 is a butter braise, not the flour-and-cream fricassee of English books. Sweat the bacon and ham, add the chicken and aromatics, and add stock only at the end so the reduction stays glossy. Preserved or jarred truffle in oil works; a few dried porcini in the mushrooms compensates if you skip truffle altogether.
- "Spice" in these booksAn unspecified pinch of spice usually means a mixed pepper-and-nutmeg blend, sometimes with clove or mace -- what French kitchens called épices composées. A grating of nutmeg with black pepper is the sensible reading.
- An ambiguous line"A clove of garlic with one cut in it" is garbled. It most likely means a garlic clove with a whole clove stuck into it, so both can be lifted out together, which is consistent with the instruction to remove the garlic after five minutes. Treat the five minutes as the point: the garlic is a passing perfume, not a base flavour.
- Wine and tomatoA glass of Burgundy is not defined here; period glass measures range from about 2 fl oz upwards, so judge by the pan. Any dry red will do. Because the tomato sauce is added at the end from a separate recipe, the braising liquid should be reduced to a few spoonfuls first or the finished dish turns watery.
- YieldNo yield is given. A fowl of this size will stretch to about four, or six alongside a substantial pasta or vegetable course.
The Cook's Decameron (1901) was Mrs. W. G. Waters's collection of Italian recipes hung on a Boccaccio-style frame. The three pollastro recipes here show how thoroughly French professional cooking had settled into upper-class Italian kitchens by the end of the nineteenth century -- "alla Lorenese" points at Lorraine, and the fricassee and the garnish of combs and kidneys belong to the French repertoire. The tomato sauce cross-referenced at the end appears as a finishing sauce rather than a cooking medium. The terse ingredient lists without weights are typical of the book, which assumes a cook who can judge quantity by eye and uses the recipe as a reminder rather than a set of instructions.