No. 1990

Pullet, Parisian Style-Stuffed

Poularde Farcie a la Parisienne

This entree is dressed on a dish decorated with an open-work border made of cooked paste (No. 10), having the empty space in the center covered with a wooden foundation masked over with noodle paste (No. 142), dried in the air. Draw a pullet through the side, break the breastbone to be able to draw it out, and stuff the breast with quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), finished with a few spoonfuls of cooked fine herbs (No. 385), and a foies-gras salpicon cut in three-eighths of an inch dice, and truffles of the same size; sew the breast skin underneath, and truss the pullet as for entree (No. 178); cover with slices of fat pork and cook in a good stock (No. 194a), keeping it white, and when done properly, drain, untie, and untruss. Lay it on the foundation already placed on the dish; surround it with a garnishing of round truffles cooked at the last moment with Madeira and melted glaze (No. 402). Cover the pullet with some good veloute sauce (No. 415), reduced with its own stock and the Madeira and glaze in which the truffles have been cooked, and serve a sauce-boat of the sauce at the same time.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A Ranhofer set piece: a poached young hen stuffed under the skin with a truffled forcemeat, presented on a decorative base. Almost every element points to another number in the book, so the recipe reads as shorthand; here is what those references actually stand for.

The birdA pullet is a young hen, roughly 3 to 4 lb, tenderer and less fatty than a stewing fowl. Any good 3 1/2 lb roasting chicken stands in; the point is a bird small enough to poach evenly and young enough not to need long cooking.
Boning through the sideThe hinge of the dish. "Draw through the side" means gutting through a lateral slit rather than the vent, so the breast stays intact. Break the keel bone and pull it out from inside, so the breast can be packed with the forcemeat, then sew the opening closed underneath where it will not be seen.
Quenelle forcemeatRanhofer's No. 89 is a pounded raw-meat quenelle forcemeat, bound with panada and butter and kept cold, closer to a mousseline than to a bread stuffing. A food processor does in a couple of minutes what the original expected of a mortar, provided everything stays refrigerator-cold.
SalpiconSimply a dice of one or more cooked ingredients. Three-eighths of an inch is a scant 1 cm cube of foie gras and of truffle, folded into the forcemeat whole so it shows as clean flecks when carved.
Cooked fine herbsNo. 385 is the standard cooked fines herbes: finely chopped shallot, mushroom and parsley sweated in butter, not raw chopped herbs. Cool it completely before it goes into the forcemeat.
Keeping it whiteThe bird is barded with fat pork and poached in white stock at a bare tremble, never boiled, so the skin and flesh stay pale. Water at a rolling boil will tear the sewn skin and squeeze the forcemeat out. Around 60 to 75 minutes for a 3 1/2 lb bird; 165F at the thickest part of the thigh.
The socleThe "wooden foundation masked with noodle paste" is a purely decorative plinth to raise the bird on the platter, dried hard and inedible. Skip it and serve on a warmed dish, or set the pullet on a bed of the truffle garnish.
The sauceVeloute here is a white stock sauce thickened with blond roux. Finish it by reducing with the poaching liquor and the Madeira-and-glaze from the truffles, then strain; the reduction is what gives an otherwise pale sauce its depth.
YieldServes six to eight as a course. Carve at table across the breast so the truffle and foie gras dice show in the slice.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entree shows the kitchen working in full Parisian dress: a poached white bird, truffles, foie gras, a veloute finished with Madeira, all raised on an ornamental socle so the platter arrived at the height the dining room expected. "A la parisienne" in nineteenth-century menu French can denote a particular garnish, but it also signals more broadly the refined, city-restaurant treatment, as against provincial or rustic handling of the same bird. The distinction between capon, pullet and fowl that gives this section its name mattered to a chef buying birds by the crate, since age determined whether a bird was poached and served whole, roasted, or sent to the stockpot. The trick of boning through the side to stuff beneath an unbroken breast skin is older than the book.