No. 2243

Crepine of Pullet

Crepine de Poularde

Put half a pound of grated fat pork in a saucepan with as much butter and oil, set it on the fire with the pullet and brown this to a fine color, then take out and untruss. Brown in butter some finely chopped shallot and mushrooms, season with salt, pepper and chopped parsley, let cool off, and use it to mask the surface of the pullet, then lay over a layer of not too hard quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), and wrap the whole up in a piece of "crepine" or caul fat; baste with butter, bestrew with bread-crumbs and place it in a hot oven to finish cooking the pullet; dress and pour around a buttered half-glaze sauce (No. 413), with lemon juice added.

← No. 2242 Crepine of Lambs' Trotters, Perigueux Sauce Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2244 Crepine of Brains →

For the Modern Kitchen

A whole young chicken is browned, coated in duxelles and forcemeat, wrapped in caul fat and finished in the oven. The caul is the hinge: it melts as the bird roasts, basting the forcemeat and holding it in place, so nothing else substitutes cleanly.

CrépineCaul fat, the lacy fat membrane from a pig's abdomen. Order it from a butcher; it usually comes frozen or salted. Thaw slowly and soak briefly in tepid water with a splash of vinegar to make it pliable, then pat dry before wrapping, as it tears when handled cold or stretched hard.
PulletA young hen. The recipe gives no weight; a modern 3½ lb roasting chicken is a reasonable stand-in. Much larger and the browning-then-finishing sequence is thrown off, with the forcemeat overcooking before the thighs are done.
Grated fat porkUnsmoked fatback or salt pork, grated on a coarse box grater so it renders quickly. If using salt pork, blanch it first or the seasoning of the finished dish will be too aggressive. Half a pound plus butter and oil is a generous browning fat; a quarter pound is enough in a heavy pan.
UntrussThe bird is trussed for the initial browning to keep its shape, then the strings come out so the legs and breast can be coated evenly. Do this while the chicken is still warm but handleable.
The mushroom layerShallot and mushroom cooked down in butter with parsley is a duxelles in all but name. Cook it until the moisture has gone and the mixture holds together, or the forcemeat layer will slide and the crumb coating will steam rather than brown.
Quenelle forcemeat (No. 89)Ranhofer's quenelle forcemeats are generally pounded meat (veal, poultry or game) worked with panada, egg and butter; check No. 89 for the exact version. A modern equivalent is a chicken mousseline: breast meat blitzed cold with egg white and cream, seasoned well. "Not too hard" means spreadable, roughly the texture of thick mayonnaise.
Hot ovenThe recipe says only "hot" and gives no number; something around 425F in a modern oven. The bird is already partly cooked from browning, so this stage is about setting the forcemeat and colouring the crumbs. Reckon roughly 40 to 50 minutes and take the chicken to 165F in the thigh; the forcemeat should read the same.
Half-glaze sauce (No. 413)Demi-glace, finished here with butter and lemon juice off the heat. A good reduced brown chicken or veal stock, mounted with cold butter and sharpened at the last moment, does the same work. Do not let it boil once the butter is in.
YieldProbably four as a main course, or six carved into slices, which is how this would have gone out as an entrée in a long menu; the recipe gives no yield.

A Little History

Crépine dishes run through The Epicurean as a small family — trotters, brains, and this pullet all appear within three consecutive numbers — because caul fat was a standard piece of French professional equipment rather than a novelty. It arrived free with the pig, it melted into whatever it wrapped, and it let a kitchen present a stuffed or coated item without a pastry crust or a mould. Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years and published this book in 1894 as a record of that service, which is why the recipe assumes you already have quenelle forcemeat and half-glaze standing by: they are cross-referenced to numbered preparations elsewhere in the book, the working shorthand of a brigade rather than instructions for a household. The technique itself survives most visibly in crépinettes, the flat caul-wrapped sausages still sold in French charcuteries, and in the practice of caul-wrapping lean roasts to keep them from drying.