No. 1881

Chicken in the Saucepan—Roasted

Poulet Roti a la Casserole

Brown a fine, small, whole chicken trussed for roasting (No. 179) in any kind of earthen saucepan with a little butter. After the chicken has attained a light golden color, moisten it with a spoonful of clear gravy (No. 404) and half a glassful of white wine; cover over and let the liquid fall to a half-glaze. When ready to serve dish up the chicken after untrussing it. A few small whole onions may be added as a garnishing after blanching them in boiling water and then frying them. Cover the whole with a half-glaze sauce (No. 413).

← No. 1880 Chickens a l'Hoteliere—Roasted Chicken No. 1882 Chickens with Oyster Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is pot-roasting under another name: a whole bird browned and then finished, covered, in its own concentrated juices. The whole point is the low, steady heat of a heavy lidded pot, so the small amount of liquid reduces to a glaze rather than boiling the chicken.

"A la casserole" means the pot, not a bakeRanhofer asks here only for "any kind of earthen saucepan," covered. A heavy enameled cast-iron Dutch oven is the modern equivalent; the bird should not have more than an inch of clearance around it, or the liquid spreads out and evaporates before it glazes.
The bird"A fine, small, whole chicken" suggests something in the 2.5 to 3 lb range, a small fryer rather than a supermarket roaster. A 3 lb bird, browned and then covered over low heat, takes about 50 to 60 minutes to reach 165F in the thigh. A much larger bird will not cook evenly this way.
Half a glassful of wineA nineteenth-century wineglass is conventionally reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, which would make half a glassful roughly 1 fluid ounce, or 2 tablespoons. With the spoonful of gravy that is a very small amount of liquid by design: it is there to be reduced, not to braise.
Clear gravy (No. 404)Ranhofer's jus is an unthickened brown veal-and-beef stock, reduced and skimmed clear. A good unsalted brown stock or reduced roast-chicken stock stands in; avoid packaged bouillon, which will oversalt as the liquid reduces to a glaze.
Half-glazeHalf-glaze (No. 413) is demi-glace, brown sauce reduced with stock until it coats a spoon. "Let the liquid fall to a half-glaze" in the pot means reduce it to a syrupy film, a tablespoon or two at most. If you have no demi-glace on hand, deglazing the pot with a little more stock and reducing it hard gives a serviceable pan sauce.
TrussingTrussing keeps the legs and wings tight so the bird browns evenly and fits the pot. Untrussing before serving, as instructed, matters more than it sounds: cut and pull the string while the chicken is still whole, then let it rest ten minutes before carving.
The onion garnishBlanch small peeling onions one to two minutes, drain, then fry in butter until browned. Ranhofer treats them as a garnish added when the chicken is dished up rather than cooked alongside it; if you want them to take on the glaze, add them near the end rather than at the start, or they collapse.
YieldA 3 lb bird serves two generously or three modestly, about the scale of a single course in the long menus this book was written for.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and its 3,000-plus numbered recipes cross-reference one another the way this one does: the bird is trussed by No. 179, moistened with the gravy of No. 404, sauced with the half-glaze of No. 413. That structure assumes a brigade with stockpots already going, which is why so little of the work appears on the page. Poulet en casserole itself is generally said to be older and humbler than Delmonico's, a French domestic method for a small bird cooked in a covered earthenware pot rather than on a spit, and the earthenware is traditionally given as the reason: unglazed or partly glazed clay is held to keep a gentle, even heat that stops a lean young chicken from drying. Ranhofer's contribution is the finish, a bourgeois pot-roast dressed up with demi-glace and glazed onions for a restaurant table.