No. 1981

Pullet a la Seymour

Poularde a la Seymour

Soak a pound and a half of bread in milk, then press out all the liquid and add it to half a pound of very finely chopped beef suet taken from around the kidneys and a seasoning of shallots, chopped parsley, salt, pepper, cream and egg-yolks; use this to stuff the inside and the breast of a pullet, prepared for roasting (No. 179), tie it up and cover with fat pork then roast it before a good fire basting it over frequently, remove, dress and pour on some clear gravy (No. 404), then serve.

← No. 1980 Pullet a la Printaniere-Glazed Capon & Pullet No. 1982 Pullet a la Villars →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional kitchen with a spit and a stock pot always going; the recipe assumes both. The substitutions are straightforward, but the stuffing quantity and the cooking method both need attention.

A pullet, and how bigA pullet is a young hen, generally under a year old; Ranhofer's poularde is a fattened one and could run larger. A good roasting chicken of 3 to 4 lb is a reasonable stand-in, serving about four.
Scale the stuffing downA pound and a half of bread with half a pound of suet makes a great deal of forcemeat — far more than a 4 lb bird will hold. Expect to use roughly a third of it in the chicken and bake the rest in a buttered dish alongside, or halve the whole quantity from the start.
"The inside and the breast"The second half most likely means under the skin of the breast rather than on top of it. Loosen the skin from the flesh with your fingers from the neck end and push a layer of forcemeat in, so it bastes the breast meat from within.
SuetBeef kidney suet is still sold by butchers and by post, usually shredded. The packaged shredded suet on supermarket shelves is often part vegetable fat and coated in flour, which changes the texture — ask for the real thing if you can.
Seasoning amounts are left to youRanhofer gives no quantities for the shallots, parsley, cream or yolks. For a half batch, two shallots, a good handful of parsley, two yolks and a few spoonfuls of cream, with salt and pepper, is a reasonable starting point. Fry a teaspoon of the mixture to taste it before stuffing.
Fat pork and the fireThe covering of fat pork is barding: sheets of pork back fat or thinly sliced unsmoked fatback tied over the breast. Streaky bacon works but adds cure flavour. Roast at 375F rather than before a fire, basting every fifteen minutes, and remove the barding for the last twenty minutes to colour the skin.
Cook to temperature, not to the clockA stuffed bird cooks slower than an empty one, and this stuffing contains raw egg yolk. Take the stuffing itself to 165F at the centre, which usually arrives a little after the thigh joint does.
The gravyNo. 404 is Ranhofer's clear gravy: unthickened and skimmed of fat, not a floured pan sauce. Deglaze the roasting pan with a good stock, reduce, and strain.

A Little History

Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and its poultry chapter runs to hundreds of numbered variations distinguished mainly by garnish, stuffing and sauce — a system inherited from the French service of Carême and Dubois, where a named dish is a fixed combination rather than a separate technique. The forcemeat here is built on a bread panade: soaked bread wrung dry, bound with suet, yolks and cream, which sets soft rather than dense. Names like "à la Seymour" attached to such dishes were often honorific, given for a patron or a public figure, and the connection is rarely documented; in most cases the name survived long after anyone remembered whom it commemorated. The instruction to roast before a good fire rather than in an oven reflects the persistence of spit roasting in high-end American kitchens well into the closed-range era.