No. 1908

Spring Chickens As an Entree, Roasted—Small

Poulets Reine Rotis en Entree de Broche

Singe three small chickens weighing three-quarters of a pound each; draw, and clean well; truss as for an entree (No. 178), cover the breasts with a dry matignon with Madeira (No. 406) and tie on this thin slices of fat pork to keep it in place, tying the pork with three rows of string; run iron skewers lengthwise of the chickens and fasten them on the spit; three-quarters of an hour before serving roast them in front of a bright fire basting over with butter and the fat from the dripping pan. When done, remove, unwrap and untruss. Invert on a dish a decorated and poached quenelle forcemeat (No. 80) border; lay in the center of the dish and on this a triangular center of fried bread covered with the same forcemeat, poach in the oven and range the chickens in a triangle on this border, leaning them up against the fried bread center. Dress between each one small clusters of round and peeled truffles rolled in meat glaze (No. 402), insert a garnished skewer in the bread center and the chickens. Pour some Madeira sauce (No. 492) reduced with truffle parings into the bottom of the dish after straining it through a tammy and serve more of it in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1907 Chickens with Fine Herbs, Tomato Garnishing—Chicken No. 1909 Chicken a l'Aquitaine—Braised →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote this for a spit turning in front of an open fire and a brigade that had numbered sauces and forcemeats standing ready. The dish is entirely achievable, but nearly every component is a cross-reference to another page of The Epicurean.

The birdsThree-quarter-pound chickens are true poussins; note that the recipe gives the weight before the birds are drawn, so it may not be a dressed weight. The nearest thing at a modern butcher is a poussin at about 1 lb or a Cornish game hen at 1 to 1 1/4 lb; one bird per person either way.
Timing is the hingeThree-quarters of an hour was set by a slow-turning spit and a radiant fire. A 1 lb bird in a 425F oven is done in 30 to 35 minutes, and at 165F in the thigh it should come out; these birds are small enough that ten extra minutes ruins them.
MatignonNot a garnish in the modern sense but a paste of finely cut carrot, onion, celery and ham stewed down with Madeira until dry, spread on the breast as a flavouring layer. "Dry" is the operative word — wet matignon steams the skin instead of scenting it.
Barding porkThe thin sheets of fat pork tied over the breast are there because a spit-roasted bird of this size dries out in minutes. Substitute unsmoked fatback or thin-sliced pancetta, and cut the strings for the last few minutes if you want colour on the skin.
Spit to ovenIf you have a rotisserie attachment, use it; the iron skewers run lengthwise are simply how the birds were kept from spinning loose. Otherwise roast them on a rack in a hot oven and baste with butter and pan drippings every ten minutes, which is what the fire-basting achieved.
Quenelle forcemeatNo. 80 is one of Ranhofer's quenelle forcemeats, typically pounded veal or poultry bound with panada and egg, moulded into a border and poached. A modern mousseline — breast meat, egg white and cream in a food processor, poached gently — gives a comparable result and is far less work.
TammyA tammy is a fine worsted cloth through which sauce was wrung by two people twisting opposite ends. A chinois lined with damp muslin does the same job for the reduced Madeira sauce.
Garnished skewersThe "garnished skewer" is a hâtelet: a decorative silver skewer threaded with truffle, cockscomb or crayfish and stood upright for display. It is presentation only, and the dish loses nothing if you leave it out.
TrufflesWhole peeled truffles rolled in meat glaze are the expense that dates this recipe. Small whole roasted mushrooms glazed in reduced stock keep the visual logic of the clusters without the outlay.
ServesThree, as an entrée in the old sense — a served course between fish and roast, not the main plate of the meal.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York across two spells totalling more than thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in print, complete with the internal numbering a chef would follow from one preparation to the next. Poulet reine — literally "queen chicken" — was the trade term for a small, tender, well-fattened young bird, and the phrase en entrée de broche marks this as a spit roast served as an entrée course rather than as the roast proper, a distinction that mattered in a service still organised on French lines. The elaborate staging, with its poached forcemeat border, fried bread pedestal and upright decorated skewers, belongs to the grande cuisine tradition generally traced to Carême, in which a dish was built vertically to be carried into the room and looked at before it was carved. That style largely vanished from restaurant cooking within a generation of this book's publication, as plated courses took over.