No. 1879

Chickens a la Championne—Roasted

Poulets Rotis a la Championne

Select two very fleshy chickens of two pounds each; singe, draw and clean them, picking out all the pin feathers; truss them as for an entree, explained in the Elementary Methods (No. 178); cover the breasts with dry mirepoix (No. 419) and wrap up in a thin slice of fat pork; roast them on a spit before a slow but well-regulated fire, basting over frequently. Cut up quite fine one pound of cooked and peeled mushrooms; combine them with reduced bechamel sauce (No. 409) and finish with a little paprika and melted meat glaze (No. 402); with this preparation fill some hollow, round or semi-circular crusts (No. 52), smooth the surfaces and bestrew the tops with parmesan, then glaze them in a brisk oven or under a salamander (Fig. 123). As soon as the chickens are taken from the spit, unwrap and cut them up into five pieces each, suppressing the drumsticks; range them inside a cooked paste border (No. 10) fastened on at some distance from the edge of the dish as shown in Fig. 3; around this border lay the garnished crusts and cover the chickens lightly with a little tomato sauce (No. 549) sending a sauce-boat of the same to the table to be handed round the same time as the chicken.

← No. 1878 Pilau of Chickens Chicken No. 1880 Chickens a l'Hoteliere—Roasted →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's set piece: two small roasting chickens, barded and spit-roasted, served inside a pastry border with mushroom-filled croustades. Most of the work is in the cross-references, so the useful thing is to know what each one actually is.

The hinge: bard, then basteRanhofer covers the breasts with dry mirepoix and wraps the whole bird in fat pork precisely because a spit-roasted 2 lb chicken dries out in minutes. If you roast in an oven, keep the pork fat or a sheet of caul or bacon over the breast for the first two-thirds and remove it at the end to color the skin.
Chicken size"Two very fleshy chickens of two pounds each" describes a bird smaller than the usual modern roaster, though small broilers and Cornish hens are still sold. Two 3 to 3 1/2 lb chickens are the closest practical match; a single large roaster will not give the same neat proportions in the five-piece presentation.
Spit to ovenThe book gives no temperatures for spit-roasting. "A slow but well-regulated fire" with frequent basting corresponds roughly to a moderate oven, in the region of 350F; expect around an hour for a 3 lb bird, cooked to 165F in the thigh. Raise the heat for the last ten minutes, once the barding fat comes off, to colour the skin.
Dry mirepoixNot the raw onion-carrot-celery base of modern usage. A dry mirepoix (mirepoix sec) of this period is generally those vegetables with lean ham or bacon, cut small and cooked in butter with herbs until the moisture has gone, so it seasons the meat without wetting it.
Meat glazeGlace de viande: brown stock reduced until it is syrupy and sets firm when cold. A spoonful of good demi-glace or a commercial veal glace does the same job. It is there for gloss and depth, so use it sparingly in the mushroom filling.
Crusts and paste borderThe "hollow, round or semi-circular crusts" are croustades, hollowed out of stale bread or baked from puff trimmings. The "cooked paste border" is a decorative rim of stiff flour-and-water paste fixed to the platter; it is inedible scaffolding and can simply be left off.
SalamanderThe salamander was a heated iron plate held over food to brown it. A broiler set high, with the crusts on the top rack for a minute or two, gives the same glaze on the parmesan.
Bechamel"Reduced bechamel" means cooked down until it will hold its shape in a croustade without weeping. Take it thicker than you think reasonable; the mushroom juices will loosen it.
YieldTen pieces of chicken, the drumsticks set aside, serves four to five as a main course. Make one croustade per person.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire written down at the scale of a professional kitchen with a brigade to execute it. Dishes like this one, with a paste border fixed to the platter and a figure reference for the arrangement, belong to the service a la russe era, when a roast came to the dining room as a composed presentation rather than a whole bird to be carved at the table. The name a la championne is not a standard classical garnish in the way a la financiere or a l'hoteliere are; the neighbouring recipes in this section are titled in similar fashion, and some of Ranhofer's names appear to have been coined in-house. Paprika was still a comparatively uncommon seasoning in American kitchens of the 1890s.