No. 2552

Roast Peacock Adorned with Its Plumage

Paon Roti et Pare de son Plumage

Procure a young peacock with very brilliant plumage; cut off half of the rump with the tail feathers attached to it and spread them into a fan, then dry; also remove the wings with their plumage and the head with all the beautiful neck feathers as far down as the breast, including the skin; stuff the neck with wadding and insert a stiff wire in the middle to hold it in its natural position. Pick the peacock, draw, singe and free it of feathers; truss for roasting (No. 179) and stuff with a dressing made with a pound of soaked and well-pressed bread-crumbs, the same quantity of chopped beef marrow, and season with spices (No. 168), chopped shallot fried colorless in butter and raw liver chopped up finely. Cook in a moderate oven, basting over frequently with butter, and when cold dish it up on a carved rice socle; adorn it with its plumage; surround with chopped jelly and a border of jelly croutons (No. 2442) and serve separately a cold poivrade sauce (No. 620).

← No. 2551 Pork Liver Pie or Terrine Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2553 Pheasant Stuffed a la Prince Orloff →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote this for a Delmonico's banquet table, where the bird was a showpiece rather than dinner. Most of the work is presentation, and the presentation is where modern practice diverges most sharply.

Keep the feathers away from the foodThe tail, wings and neck skin are raw poultry skin with feathers attached, and in the original they are dried and then set against a cooked bird that will sit out at a buffet. Have the plumage properly cleaned and dried well ahead, mount it so nothing touches the meat, and treat the whole assembly as decoration rather than something to carve around.
Sourcing the birdPeafowl are farmed for the table in small numbers and can be ordered from game dealers; a young bird dresses out at roughly 5 to 8 lb. There is no supermarket substitute; a turkey of similar weight is the closest stand-in if the plumage is not the point (goose, being much fattier, needs different handling).
"Moderate oven"Ranhofer gives no figure; a moderate oven is usually read as somewhere around 325-350F. A bird of this size wants roughly 15 to 18 minutes per pound, to 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, with frequent butter basting as directed -- peafowl is lean and inclined to dryness.
Cooling it safelyBecause it is served cold, get the bird out of the 40–140F range briskly: uncover, cool at room temperature no more than two hours, then refrigerate. The rice socle and jelly garnish should be assembled cold, shortly before serving.
Beef marrowA pound of chopped marrow means the soft interior of marrow bones, which your butcher can saw for you; expect to need several pounds of bones. Scoop it out, chill it firm, then chop — warm marrow smears rather than dices.
The stuffing ratioA pound of pressed crumbs to a pound of marrow plus raw liver is a rich, fatty forcemeat by modern taste. Soak the crumbs in milk or stock and squeeze them hard; wet crumbs will make the dressing pasty. Cook any stuffing to 165F as well, or bake it separately in a dish.
The cross-referencesNo. 168 is Ranhofer's mixed spice — a blend along the lines of pepper, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, bay and thyme; a teaspoon or so for this quantity of forcemeat. No. 620, cold poivrade, is a peppery brown sauce sharpened with vinegar and mirepoix, served chilled.
Rice socleA socle is a carved pedestal, here made from rice cooked to a stiff, gluey mass, pressed into a block, chilled and cut to shape. It is structural, not eaten. A shaped platter or a bread base does the same job with less trouble.
YieldThe original gives none. A bird this size will serve 8 to 12 as a cold course, though on a period buffet it was expected to be looked at more than eaten.

A Little History

Roast peacock in full plumage is one of the oldest set pieces in European festive cooking, generally traced to medieval and Renaissance banquets where the bird was skinned with its feathers intact, roasted, and reassembled to be carried in procession -- sometimes with camphor-soaked tow burning in its beak. By the time Charles Ranhofer put it in The Epicurean (1894), drawing on his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, peacock had long since given way to turkey and pheasant at table; what survived was the spectacle. Its place here, under garnishings for cold dishes rather than among the roasts, tells you how it functioned: a centerpiece for a Gilded Age buffet, mounted on a carved socle and ringed with aspic.