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Stuffing a L'Americaine
Soak four ounces stale bread in cold milk ten minutes, press out the milk and place bread in a bowl. Add two ounces finely chopped raw beef marrow, half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, a saltspoon powdered thyme, three saltspoons salt and two saltspoons white pepper. Chop finely half a medium, white onion and brown in a teaspoon melted butter to a nice colour, add to the bowl with an egg yolk. Stir the whole together with wooden spoon until thoroughly amalgamated, then use as required.
A French-style panade stuffing, enriched with marrow rather than sausage or suet. It is a component, not a finished dish, and the quantities are small.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So three saltspoons salt is 3/4 teaspoon and two saltspoons white pepper is a full 1/2 teaspoon, which is assertive; taste a pinch of the mixture cooked in a skillet before committing it.
- Four ounces stale breadThat is a weight, not a volume: roughly three or four thick slices of dry, close-crumbed white bread, giving about two cups of loose crumb. Airy supermarket sandwich bread collapses to almost nothing once soaked, so use a firm loaf left out overnight.
- Press out the milkSqueeze the bread hard, to the point where it holds together as a paste. Excess milk is what makes a marrow stuffing weep and turn sodden in the cavity.
- Beef marrowAsk a butcher for marrow bones and scoop the raw marrow out, or buy canoe-cut bones and lift it clear with a spoon. Chilling the marrow firm makes it far easier to chop; two ounces is the marrow from roughly one large centre-cut bone.
- The onionBrown it properly and let it cool before it meets the egg yolk. Hot onion will begin to set the yolk and the mixture will not amalgamate smoothly.
- Yield and useThis makes about a cup and a half, enough for a small bird, a few boned quail, a rolled flank or veal breast, or for stuffing vegetables. Scale up by four or five for a whole turkey.
- Cooking itBoth the marrow and the egg yolk go in raw, so the stuffing must reach 165F/74C wherever it ends up. Stuffing baked inside a bird takes longer than the bird itself; check it with a probe rather than trusting the meat's temperature.
"A l'américaine" was attached to a great many turn-of-the-century dishes on fairly thin grounds, and often signalled a French kitchen's idea of an American touch rather than anything cooked in America. What is genuinely French here is the method: bread soaked in milk and wrung out, the panade, is a standard base for continental forcemeats and stuffings, where the Anglo-American tradition more often relies on dried crumbs and melted butter. Marrow was a familiar enrichment in forcemeats, prized for the particular soft richness it gives when it melts into the mixture.