No. 1829

Chicken a la Irving—Broiled and Stuffed

Poulet Farci et Grille a la Irving

Procure very young chickens each one to weigh a pound and a quarter; draw singe and clean them well picking out all the pin feathers; split them in two through the back, and take off the meat from the legs without injuring the skin; chop up this meat with the same quantity of fresh fat pork, a few spoonfuls of cooked fine herbs (No. 385), and half as much bread-crumbs; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, adding one whole egg; lay this dressing in the inside part of the chickens, cover with melted butter and besprinkle with bread-crumbs; lay them on a double hinged broiler to broil very slowly but to a fine color. Fry colorless one tablespoonful of onions with as much small squares of raw ham; moisten with a gill of veal blond (No. 423), a gill of espagnole sauce (No. 414), and a gill of tomato puree (No. 730); let the whole simmer for ten minutes, then strain the sauce through a fine sieve and pour it into the bottom of the dish; sprinkle over with chopped parsley and lay the stuffed chickens on top.

← No. 1828 Chicken a la Delisle-Broiled Chicken No. 1830 Chicken with Bacon, Maitre-d'Hotel—Broiled →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a stuffed, split poussin cooked slowly between grill irons, served on a compound sauce. Two things decide the outcome: gentle heat, and getting the raw pork forcemeat to a safe internal temperature before the skin burns.

The hinge: slow heat, finished in the ovenA bird carrying a raw pork-and-egg farce under its skin needs the stuffing to reach 165F/74C, which direct broiling will not achieve before the crumbs blacken. Colour the birds over moderate heat, then transfer to a 350F/175C oven to finish and check the forcemeat with a probe.
The birdsA pound-and-a-quarter chicken is a poussin or spring chicken, sold today at 1 to 1 1/2 lb. Two supermarket Cornish game hens are the closest common substitute; a standard broiler at 3 1/2 lb is far too large for this treatment.
A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz, about 120 ml. The sauce therefore totals about 1 1/2 cups before reduction, enough for four halves.
Veal blond and espagnoleNo. 423 is a pale veal stock; No. 414 is the long-simmered brown mother sauce. A good reduced veal or brown chicken stock stands in for the first, and a well-made demi-glace for the second. Do not substitute canned gravy, which will not stand up to the tomato.
Cooked fine herbs, No. 385Ranhofer's cooked fines herbes is a cooked preparation rather than a raw herb mixture, generally along the lines of shallots and mushrooms sweated in butter with parsley. Sweat a finely chopped shallot and a few mushrooms in butter until dry, then add chopped parsley and chervil off the heat.
Fresh fat porkUnsalted, uncured back fat or fatback. Fatty pork belly, rind removed, works; salt pork does not without soaking, and the recipe already seasons with salt.
Taking the meat off the legsBone out the thigh and drumstick from the inside, leaving the skin intact so it can be filled again. A boning knife and a chilled bird make this much easier; the leg meat is what goes into the farce.
The double hinged broilerA wire grill basket that clamps the halves flat, so they can be turned as one. A weighted skillet or a foil-wrapped brick over the birds in a heavy pan gives the same even contact.
YieldThe recipe does not specify how many birds; two birds split gives four halves, which serves four as a main course or two generously.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast compendium of the cooking he ran at Delmonico's in New York, where naming dishes after patrons, performers and public figures was standard practice: the book is full of preparations "a la Delisle," "a la Sarah Bernhardt," "Rachel," and the like. Who the Irving was is not recorded; Washington Irving has been suggested, but Ranhofer, as usual, gives no explanation. The technique itself is older than the restaurant: boning the legs of a very small bird, filling the skin with a forcemeat of its own meat and pork fat, and grilling the whole flat between irons is a French method. The sauce, built by moistening a ham-and-onion base with three separate house preparations, is characteristic of the large brigade kitchen that made The Epicurean possible - each component was already standing ready, numbered and cross-referenced.