No. 1979

Pullet a la Perigord

Poularde a la Perigord

After the pullet has been singed stuff the breast with pounded veal suet seasoned with salt, prepared red pepper (No. 168) and a clove of garlic, adding to it some chopped up truffles. Insert thick slices of truffles between the fat and skin, then wrap the fowl in a matignon (No. 406) and roast it on the spit or oven; unwrap and reduce the matignon with espagnole sauce (No. 414) and Madeira; dress the pullet with some clear gravy (No. 404) and serve the sauce separately.

← No. 1978 Pullet a la Nantua Capon & Pullet No. 1980 Pullet a la Printaniere-Glazed →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a larder of numbered preparations on hand, so the whole dish reads as four cross-references. Stripped of them, it is a truffled roast chicken with a vegetable wrapping that becomes the sauce.

The hinge: truffles under the skin, earlySlide the sliced truffles between skin and flesh well before roasting — several hours, ideally overnight in the refrigerator. The aroma is fat-soluble and migrates into the breast; done at the last minute the truffle contributes almost nothing but texture.
What a pullet isA young hen that has not yet laid, roughly 3 to 4 lb dressed. A standard supermarket roasting chicken of that weight is the honest equivalent. "Singed" means burning off residual pinfeathers, unnecessary on a modern bird.
Matignon (No. 406)Not a stuffing but a bed and wrapper: finely cut carrot, onion, celery and often raw ham or bacon, stewed in butter and moistened with Madeira. Here it is packed around the bird and held with barding fat or caul so it steams against the skin, then scraped off and made into the sauce.
Espagnole (No. 414) and clear gravy (No. 404)Espagnole is the long-simmered brown stock thickened with brown roux; the clear gravy is the strained, ungreased roasting juices. A good reduced brown veal stock stands in for the espagnole without embarrassment.
Prepared red pepper (No. 168)One of Ranhofer's own numbered seasonings, red pepper dried and pounded with salt; the formula itself sits elsewhere in the book. Cayenne with salt covers it; use it sparingly, as the point is warmth behind the truffle rather than heat.
Veal suetKidney fat from a calf, pounded to a paste. It is essentially unavailable at retail now. Fresh pork back fat or a hard butter-and-fatback mixture gives the same job — a fat carrier that melts into the breast.
RoastingSpit roasting is assumed; in an oven, 425F for the first 20 minutes to set the skin, then 350F to finish, about 20 minutes per pound. Take the bird to 165F in the thigh and rest it 15 minutes before carving.
Finishing the sauceAfter unwrapping, deglaze the matignon and pan with Madeira, add the espagnole, simmer and strain. Ranhofer serves it separately, with only the clear gravy on the bird — keep the skin dry rather than napping it.
YieldA 3 to 4 lb bird serves four, or six as part of a longer menu of the kind this book assumes.

A Little History

Anything called à la Périgord announces truffles: the Périgord region of southwestern France gave its common name to Tuber melanosporum, the black winter truffle, and by the nineteenth century the label functioned in French kitchens as a guarantee of them, whatever the actual provenance of the fungus. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that establishment's repertoire, and its cross-referenced numbering — matignon at 406, espagnole at 414 — reflects a kitchen where the foundation preparations were standing daily and a cook needed only the assembly. Slipping truffle slices beneath the skin of a bird is older than the book, and the same visual effect underlies the later poularde demi-deuil, "in half-mourning," so named for the dark rounds showing through the pale skin — though that dish is poached rather than roasted.