No. 1992

Truffled Roasted Pullet

Poularde Truffles Rotie

A few days before this is needed draw the pullet through the side and wipe the inside well. Peel twelve to sixteen ounces of fine, fresh truffles, leaving them either whole or cut in two or four according to their size. Melt two ounces of grated fat pork in a saucepan, add it to the truffles and season with fine allspice; fry for two minutes, remove and use this to stuff the breast of the pullet. Sew up the openings and truss, then lay it aside in a cool place. When needed wrap it in buttered paper, run it on a spit (No. 118) or else lay it in a small cradle spit (No. 116) without boring any hole through it whatever, and roast it for one hour, basting frequently. Unwrap it ten minutes before serving to salt over and allow to attain a fine color; take it out, untie and send it to the table with a sauce-boat of good reduced gravy (No. 404) into which has been added the chopped up truffle peelings.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a spit, a larder and a cook who can buy a pound of fresh truffles without flinching. The technique itself is sound and the essential idea — perfume the bird from the inside for a day or more before it is cooked — still works.

The hinge: resting timeThe point of stuffing the bird days ahead is that truffle aroma migrates into the fat and flesh; skip it and you have merely roasted a chicken with truffles inside. Modern practice is to stuff, truss and refrigerate at 40F for 24 hours, no more than two days, rather than leaving raw stuffed poultry in a cool larder as written.
PulletA young hen not yet a year old; Ranhofer's poularde is a fattened bird, so allow anything from about 3 to 5 lb dressed. A supermarket roasting chicken is the nearest equivalent, serving three or four depending on size.
"Fine allspice"This appears to render epice fine, the French mixed spice powder, rather than the single berry called allspice in English. Such blends typically ran to pepper, nutmeg, clove and dried herbs in some combination, and were used in pinches.
Grated fat porkFatback or unsmoked salt pork, frozen firm and grated so it melts quickly and evenly. If salt pork is used, soak it first and hold back on the final salting.
Truffles and their peelingsTwelve to sixteen ounces of fresh black truffle is a restaurant quantity from an era when Perigord truffles were merely expensive. Two to four ounces, sliced rather than left whole, gives a recognisable version; the instruction to chop the peelings into the gravy is the frugal half of the method and worth keeping.
Spit or ovenNos. 116 and 118 are Delmonico's cradle spit and standard spit. On a rotisserie, medium-high with a drip pan. In an oven, 400F is the nearest equivalent, buttered parchment in place of the buttered paper, uncovered for the last ten minutes to colour.
Time and donenessOne hour suits a 3 to 4 lb bird at that heat, but judge by a thermometer: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, and check the truffle stuffing in the breast has reached the same.
The gravyNo. 404 is a reduced brown gravy in the classic style. A well-reduced chicken or veal jus, or a light demi-glace, serves; the roasting juices plus the peelings will carry it.

A Little History

Poularde truffee was one of the fixed points of nineteenth-century French cooking, a winter and especially a Christmas dish built around the black truffles of Perigord, and Charles Ranhofer, who ran the Delmonico's kitchens in New York for some three decades before publishing The Epicurean in 1894, includes it as a matter of course among his capon and pullet roasts. The instruction to draw the bird through the side rather than the vent, and to spit it without piercing the flesh, both belong to a tradition that held that a truffled bird had to be made several days before it was eaten.