No. 1824

Capon a la Pondichery

Chapon a la Pondichery

Draw, singe and truss a capon for an entree (No. 178), chop up finely a few onions, fry them colorless in butter, add to it some rice and moisten to three times its height with beef stock (No. 194a) seasoning with cayenne pepper, salt and butter; let boil then cook in the oven for twenty minutes. Line a buttered saucepan with carrots, onions and slices of fat pork, lay the capon on top and moisten with a little stock (No. 194a); let this reduce entirely then add more moistening and a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf. When the capon is done strain the stock, remove the fat and add it to the capon to keep it warm. Reduce the skimmed stock with veloute sauce (No. 415), curry, saffron and powdered sweet Spanish peppers; dress the rice on the bottom of a dish, lay the capon on top and cover it with a third of the sauce, serving the other two-thirds in a separate sauce-boat.

← No. 1823 Capon a la Financiere Capon & Pullet No. 1825 Capon a la Regence →

For the Modern Kitchen

A braised bird on a curried rice base, written in Ranhofer's telegraphic style with everything cross-referenced to numbered recipes elsewhere in the book. The instructions assume you already know how to braise in a lined pan and how to build a velouté.

The caponA capon is a castrated young rooster, fattier and more tender than a hen, and rarely stocked outside specialty butchers. A 5–7 lb roasting chicken behaves much the same; "trussed for an entrée" means legs and wings drawn in tight so the bird holds a compact shape on the platter.
"Moisten to three times its height"The old volumetric way of judging liquid by eye: stock poured in to a level roughly three times the depth of the rice, which works out to somewhere between two and three parts liquid to one of rice. For long-grain rice the upper end is generous; two parts liquid to one of rice will give you separate grains rather than a soft pilaf.
Oven for the riceNo temperature is given; twenty minutes covered suits a moderate oven of around 350°F. Bring the liquid to a boil on the stovetop first, as written, or the timing will not hold.
The lined saucepanCarrots, onions and slices of fat pork on the bottom of a buttered pan form a braising bed. It keeps the bird off direct heat, perfumes the stock and adds the fat a lean modern chicken lacks. Unsalted pork belly or thick-cut unsmoked bacon serves.
Reduce entirely, then moisten againThis is the hinge. The first liquid is cooked down to a glaze on the vegetables and the bird's skin before more stock goes in; skip it and you get a pale poached chicken instead of a burnished braise.
DonenessNo time is given for the bird. A 5–6 lb chicken braised at 325–350°F takes roughly 1½ hours; go by 165°F in the thickest part of the thigh.
Velouté and the spicesRecipe No. 415 is the book's velouté, a white stock sauce thickened with blond roux; a light chicken velouté substitutes directly. "Powdered sweet Spanish peppers" is sweet paprika (Spanish pimentón). Commercial curry powders of the period were generally milder than many blends sold today, so a hot modern blend may overwhelm the saffron.
YieldOne bird with rice serves six to eight as part of a longer meal, which is how it was intended, or four generously on its own.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a compendium of the French repertoire as it was cooked for American dining rooms, and the numbered cross-references are the book's spine — almost no recipe stands alone. Pondichéry (now Puducherry) was the principal French holding in India, and the name is often said to have served nineteenth-century French kitchens as a general signal for curry and saffron rather than for any dish actually cooked there, though that reading is inference rather than documented usage. The technique itself is thoroughly French: a bird braised on a bed of aromatics and salt pork, with liquid added, reduced and added again, then strained, degreased and bound with velouté. What the name tells you is less about India than about how confidently the colonial pantry had been absorbed into the grammar of the grand restaurant kitchen.