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Capon, Edward VII
Singe and cut neck off a tender, fat capon, cut nails off feet, dip legs in boiling water for five minutes, skin them with a coarse towel, neatly draw capon and wipe dry. Prepare a chicken quenelle force, adding two truffles cut in small squares and two tablespoons sherry, mix well and stuff capon with this. Tightly truss bird, make a light incision on first joint of legs and tie feet against legs. Place a few slices larding pork in a braising pan with a sliced each carrot and onion, two sliced branches each celery and parsley and two ounces raw ham, lay capon on top, season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Pour in one and a half gills good white wine, place on fire, let reduce to almost a glaze, then pour in three-quarters pint broth, set in oven for an hour and fifteen minutes, being careful to baste frequently meanwhile, remove, dress on hot dish and untruss. Arrange all around by groups stuffed fresh mushrooms, six artichoke bottoms filled with cooked peas, and glazed chestnuts. Skim fat off surface of gravy, pour in one and a half gills demi-glace, a half gill sherry and saltspoon cayenne. Lightly mix, let reduce on fire for ten minutes, again skim fat off surface, strain a third of sauce over capon, the rest into a sauce bowl, and serve.
A grand-hotel dish written for a cook who already knows how to bone, truss and make a demi-glace. Nothing here is dangerous, but half the ingredients are professional shorthand and the oven temperature is never stated.
- The birdA capon is a castrated young rooster, fatter and more tender than a hen and rarely stocked outside specialist butchers. A 5-7 lb roasting chicken behaves the same way in a braising pan; expect the meat to be a little leaner.
- Gills and pintsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills of wine is 3/4 cup, half a gill of sherry is 1/4 cup. Three-quarters of a pint of broth is 1 1/2 cups. A saltspoon is a scant 1/4 teaspoon.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A braise of this size wants a moderate oven, about 350F; the recipe calls for frequent basting, so the bird is left open rather than covered.
- Time and donenessAn hour and a quarter suits a small capon. Cook to temperature rather than clock: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh and in the centre of the forcemeat, which with a stuffed 6 lb bird usually means closer to two hours.
- Quenelle forceA pounded chicken forcemeat; versions of the period were bound variously with panada and egg or, as in the lighter mousseline style, with egg white and cream. A food processor with meat and bowl kept cold will do it. Chill it well before it goes into the cavity.
- Larding pork and raw hamLarding pork is unsmoked fatback or salt pork; sliced pancetta or a thick piece of unsmoked bacon serves. The two ounces of raw ham is prosciutto or similar, used for savour in the braising bed, not for eating.
- Demi-glaceThe finishing sauce depends on real demi-glace — reduced brown veal stock. Bought concentrate diluted per the label works; a thickened tinned gravy does not, and the sauce will taste flat and floury instead of glossy.
- Reducing to a glazeThe white wine must be cooked down almost to a syrup before the broth goes in. Skip it and the finished sauce stays thin and sharp; that reduction is what gives the gravy its depth, and the ten-minute reduction at the end plus two skimmings are what keep it from being greasy.
- Garnish and yieldGarnish -- Stuffed mushrooms, artichoke bottoms with peas and glazed chestnuts are all cooked separately and arranged in groups, not cooked with the bird. No yield is given; the six artichoke bottoms suggest about six at table.
Naming a dish for Edward VII was a compliment paid often and by many kitchens: he was Prince of Wales for sixty years and king from 1901 to 1910, an enthusiastic and public diner whose name attached itself to garnishes and preparations across the Anglo-French restaurant repertoire much as Victoria's and the Empress Eugénie's did. The style here is pure grande cuisine of the period — a braised bird set on a bed of aromatics and cured pork, finished with demi-glace and sherry, then ringed with three separate garnishes each cooked apart. Capon itself was the prestige poultry of the age, caponised birds being fattened for size and tenderness in a way ordinary table fowl were not, and its near-disappearance from general sale is one of the clearest markers of how far poultry farming shifted in the twentieth century.