No. 1958

Guinea Fowls with Sauerkraut

Pintades a la Choucroute

Cook two pounds of good sauerkraut perfectly plain with a piece of smoked bacon and half a pound of sausages. Bard two young guinea fowls and cook them smothered in a saucepan; when nearly done, add them to the sauerkraut, which is not thoroughly cooked yet, and finish both together. Drain off the fowls and meat and reduce the liquid remaining in the sauerkraut, thickening it with a piece of kneaded butter (No. 579); finish off the fire with a piece of plain butter. Dress on a dish, form a hollow in the center and lay in it the cut up fowls glazing them over simply with a brush; serve a clear gravy (No. 404) separately.

← No. 1957 Guinea Fowls Fillets a la Gaillardet Chicken No. 1959 Pigeons a la Chartreuse →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you have his numbered cross-references at hand and a cook who knows what "smothered" means. Both are easily replaced.

Cook the kraut first, and not all the wayTwo pounds of sauerkraut, rinsed or not according to how sharp yours is, wants about 45 minutes of gentle simmering with the bacon and sausage before the birds join it. The point of adding them while it is still short of done is that the last half hour of cooking flavours the kraut with the birds and the birds with the kraut.
"Cook them smothered"Ranhofer means cooking covered in a saucepan with very little liquid: the bird lightly browned in butter, then set over low heat with the lid on and basted as it goes (close to what French kitchens call poêler). A covered Dutch oven in a low oven, around 325F, gets you to the same place; the book itself gives no temperature.
Guinea fowlStill sold, usually 2 to 2 1/2 lb dressed, and leaner and drier than chicken, which is exactly why it is barded. A small chicken of the same weight works, though it will be milder against the kraut.
BardingTying a thin sheet of fatback or a few slices of unsmoked bacon over the breast. Remove it for the last stretch if you want colour, since the fat prevents browning. Modern sliced streaky bacon is a fair substitute, but it is salty on top of already salty kraut.
Kneaded butterRanhofer's No. 579 is beurre manié: equal weights of soft butter and flour worked to a smooth paste, whisked into the simmering liquid in small pieces. The final "piece of plain butter" goes in off the heat, unfloured, for gloss.
SausagesHalf a pound of a plain, coarse fresh pork sausage without heavy seasoning, or a smoked garlic sausage in the Alsatian manner. Anything with sage, fennel or chilli will fight the sour, briny flavour of the kraut, which Ranhofer cooks "perfectly plain."
DonenessGuinea fowl breast is dry by the time the legs are tender, so cook to 165F at the thickest part of the thigh and let the birds rest before carving. The half hour buried in kraut effectively steams them and helps.
Glazing and the gravy"Glazing over simply with a brush" means painting the carved pieces with reduced stock or the pan juices for shine, not making a sweet glaze. The separate "clear gravy" is an unthickened brown stock reduction, served in a boat.
YieldTwo birds and two pounds of kraut serve four to six, and the dish is better on the day it is made than reheated, when the breast toughens.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a compendium of the French repertoire as it was actually cooked in New York, which is why an Alsatian peasant preparation sits in the chicken chapter under a French title. Choucroute garnished with pork and a bird is standard Alsatian cooking, and guinea fowl — pintade, a bird of African origin domesticated in Europe since antiquity — was available to him. The technique of finishing two things together so each seasons the other is at work here: the kraut is deliberately left underdone so that the last stage of cooking is shared, and the reduced braising liquid, tightened with kneaded butter, becomes the sauce without any separately made stock beyond the clear gravy passed at table.