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Capon Stuffed with Chestnuts
Procure a fine, tender capon of three and a half pounds. Singe, cut off the feet and head, drain and wipe dry. Then stuff it with a chestnut preparation, truss carefully and lay it in a roasting pan. Spread a light tablespoon melted butter or fat over the surface; pour three tablespoons cold water at the bottom of the pan; sprinkle a good teaspoon salt over the bird. Place it in the hot oven to roast for one hour and ten minutes, turning it over once in a while and basting it frequently with its own gravy. Remove it from the oven, untruss, dress on a hot dish. Skim off the fat from the gravy and strain it through a small strainer over the capon. Serve with a little watercress placed around.
A plain French-style roast bird, written for a cook who already knows how to make chestnut stuffing and how to draw a fowl. Two things need translating: the bird itself and the oven.
- CaponA capon is a castrated young rooster, fattened for tender, well-marbled meat. Butchers rarely stock them now; a 3 1/2 lb roasting chicken is the direct substitute, and a small free-range bird comes closest in flavour.
- "Hot oven"In this period that generally means somewhere in the region of 400-450F. At that heat a 3 1/2 lb stuffed bird may well be done in about an hour and ten minutes, but go by temperature: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh and in the centre of the stuffing.
- Singeing and dressingThe instructions to singe and cut off feet and head assume a bird bought whole and barely plucked. A supermarket chicken needs none of this — just pat it dry inside and out, which is the part of the instruction that still matters for browning.
- The chestnut preparationNo quantity is given, presumably because the chestnut stuffing is handled elsewhere in the book. Reckon on about 2 cups of stuffing for a bird this size: peeled cooked chestnuts, roughly broken, bound with sausage meat or butter and breadcrumbs. Pack it loosely so heat can reach the centre.
- Water in the panThree tablespoons of cold water is there only to keep the drippings from scorching in a fierce oven. Check it once or twice during roasting and add another spoonful if the pan runs dry, or the strained gravy will taste burnt.
- Turning the birdTurning a trussed bird repeatedly in a hot oven is awkward and tears the skin. Starting breast-down for the first 25 minutes, then turning breast-up for the remainder, achieves the same end with one manoeuvre.
- The gravyThis is unthickened pan juice, not a made sauce — perhaps 1/3 cup after skimming. Deglazing the pan with a few spoonfuls of water or stock over heat will get you enough to go around.
- YieldA 3 1/2 lb bird with stuffing serves three to four. The watercress is placed around the bird as a garnish; it takes no dressing beyond the gravy that runs into it.
Roast capon with chestnut stuffing belongs to the French holiday table, where the fattened bird was long a festive roast alongside turkey rather than simply superseded by it, and where marrons — the large single-kernel sweet chestnuts — were a winter staple rather than a delicacy. Capons were produced because caponizing a young cockerel makes it grow larger and fattier than an uncastrated bird, giving meat that stays moist through a hard roasting; the practice is old enough to be described by Roman writers, and was still routine on European farms when this book appeared. Filippini's *International Cook Book* (1906) came out of Delmonico's in New York, and the entry reads exactly like a professional kitchen note: the bird is specified by weight, the seasoning is one teaspoon of salt, and the garnish is a handful of watercress, because everything else the cook needed to know was assumed.