by Julia Child
Blend the rice, herbs, and egg into the mixing bowl. Drain cooked garlic, and mash through sieve into mixing bowl; blend in, along with 2 tablespoons of the cooking liquid. (Reserve rest of liquid for sauce, including it as part of the chicken-cooking stock.) Taste stuffing, and carefully correct seasoning.
Stuff, truss, and poach the chicken as directed in the preceding recipe; either make the same sauce with pimento-butter enrichment, or make a light curry sauce by stirring 2 teaspoons of fragrant curry powder into the butter as you make the roux, beginning of Step 3, Master Recipe.
Farce Normande, aux Boudins Blancs
[White Forcemeat Stuffing with Mushroom Duxelles]
Boudin blanc, with its ground chicken, veal, or pork and tenderly cooked onions, is so good one is always happy to find other uses for it. Use half the recipe here, but there is no need to encase the mixture in sausage skins: roll it, instead, into one big sausage shape in cheesecloth, as illustrated here; poach it in the wine and chicken stock you will use for poaching the chicken, making the stock even better than usual for your final sauce. Then proceed as follows.
The poached boudin described in preceding paragraph
About ½ cup cooked mushroom duxelles (finely diced mushrooms sautéed in butter), still in their sauté pan
2 Tb minced shallots or scallions
¼ cup dry (Sercial) Madeira or dry port wine
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut the boudin into ½-inch dice and set aside. Heat the duxelles with the shallots or scallions, tossing and turning over moderately high heat for 2 minutes to cook the shallots, then pour in the wine. Boil rapidly for a minute or two, to evaporate liquid almost completely. Taste, and carefully correct seasoning.
Stuff the chicken with layers of diced boudin interspersed with sprinklings of duxelles, and top with the slices of breast meat. Truss the chicken as illustrated, and poach as directed in the Master Recipe for chicken poached in white wine. Rather than flavoring the sauce with tarragon, you might make an additional ¼ cup of wine-flavored duxelles initially, and reserve it to simmer a moment in your finished sauce before adding the final butter enrichment. A sprinkling of minced fresh green herbs, such as parsley, tarragon, or chives could go in too at the last minute.
POULARDE EN SOUTIEN-GORGE COQ EN PTE—POULARDE EN CROÛTE
[Half-boned and Stuffed Chicken in a Pastry Crust]
Once you have boned, stuffed, and enrobed a coq en pâte, you may put it away in the refrigerator and bake it the next day. Amusing to prepare and always a success when served, it is a great dish for a party. Not only are the chicken’s breastworks removed, but its skin is also peeled off; thus the French title, soutien-gorge, is as primly nondescriptive as would be our brassiere; the German Bustenhalter would give a more exact explanation of what the pastry must do to hold the breast and stuffing in place during baking. The dough, pâte à croustades, is designed for something like a pâté or a chicken that must bake for an hour or more: the pastry is crisp, tender, and delicious to eat as well as being easy to handle; if you make it in the electric mixer you will find it very easy to do.
CHICKEN NOTES
Rather than the 4½-pound roaster or capon for 6, suggested in the recipe, you may use 3- to 3½-pound fryers, and 3 of them would serve 12 to 16 people. You will need only ½ the pastry recipe per frying chicken, and 2½ cups of stuffing. Roasting time for 1 frying chicken would be 1 hour and 20 to 30 minutes; for 3 chickens in one oven, probably 1¾ to 2 hours.
For 6 people
1) The pastry—made at least 2 hours before baking
Pastry formula 6, pâte à croustades
Make the pastry either by hand in the usual way, or by machine. Wrap and chill the dough for at least 2 hours, or overnight. (Any leftovers may be frozen, and used for turnovers or appetizer pastries.)
2) Preparing and stuffing the chicken
A 4½-lb. roasting chicken or capon
Slit the skin of the chicken along the breast bone from neck end to tail end; turn chicken over and slit skin from neck to tail ¼ inch from edge of backbone on each side.
Cut off wings at elbows. Then, except for strip of skin at backbone, peel the rest of the skin off the chicken. Being careful not to detach the following pieces from the chicken, cut through ball joints attaching wings to shoulders, second joints to hips, and drumsticks to second joints; this is to prevent these appendages from kicking through the pastry during cooking. Remove breast meat, and cut out upper half of breastbone-rib structure as illustrated here. Cut the breast meat in strips and marinate, if you wish, in wine and herbs as described in the Master Recipe, Step 1. Make a brown chicken stock with the giblets, skin, and scraps (Volume I, page 236).
3½ cups of any stuffing for chicken, the évocation d’Albuféra being particularly recommended
A skewer or knitting needle just long enough to go through carcass at knees and to protrude ¼ to ½ inch on each side
Following illustrated directions, stuff the chicken and lay the breast strips on top. Insert skewer as in the illustration, to keep legs in place during baking; it will be drawn out from the crust before serving.
3) Enclosing chicken in pastry
The chilled pastry from Step 1
White wine, or vermouth, or chicken stock; or the garlic-cooking liquid if you are using farce évocation d’Albuféra
A pastry brush
A shallow buttered roasting pan or edged baking sheet large enough to hold chicken easily
Egg glaze (1 egg beaten in a small bowl with 1 tsp water)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees in time for Step 4. Roll ⅔ of the pastry out on a lightly floured board, making an oval 3⁄16 inch thick and large enough to cover top and sides of chicken. Paint chicken with wine or stock, and press the pastry in place over the flesh. (Leave a small opening at one side or both for removal of skewer after baking.) Trim off any extra pastry, leaving only enough to cover sides of chicken completely. (Bare bottom of chicken rests on baking surface.)
Roll out pastry scraps, cut into whatever designs you wish, paint undersides with egg glaze, and affix to the pastry.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: If both stuffing and chicken were cold before being combined, chicken may be covered, refrigerated, and baked the next day. Note, however, that roasting time may be 15 to 20 minutes longer than time indicated in Step 4.
4) Baking—1½ to 1¾ hours
The egg glaze and the pastry brush
Aluminum foil or brown paper
When oven has been preheated to 400 degrees, paint surface of pastry and decorations with egg glaze. Draw the point of a knife over glaze into pastry to make decorative cross-hatch marks.
Immediately set chicken in middle level of preheated oven. In 20 to 25 minutes, when pastry has begun to brown nicely, turn thermostat down to 350 degrees. Look again in another 30 minutes, and if pastry is browning too much, cover loosely with foil or brown paper. Chicken is close to being done when juices begin to exude in pan, and is definitely done when pan is removed, tipped, and last juices running from under crust are clear yellow with no trace of rose. As soon as chicken is done, remove from oven.
5) Sauce and serving
A lightly buttered serving platter
2 Tb minced shallots or scallions
¼ cup dry (Sercial) Madeira, dry port wine, or dry white French vermouth
A saucepan containing 1 cup of brown chicken stock (or a combination of chicken broth and beef bouillon)
½ cup crème fraîche or heavy cream
If needed: 1 tsp cornstarch blended with 1 Tb stock or wine
2 to 3 Tb soft butter
A warm sauce boat
Remove chicken to serving platter, and carefully extract skewer that has held legs in place. Stir the shallots or scallions and wine into the juices in the roasting pan, set over moderate heat, and scrape up all coagulated bits of flavor into juices and wine with a wooden spoon. Scrape liquid into saucepan with the stock, and boil down rapidly to concentrate flavor. Add
cream, and boil a few minutes to thicken lightly. (If it seems necessary, remove from heat, beat in cornstarch mixture, and simmer 2 minutes more to thicken.) Carefully correct seasoning. Just before serving, remove from heat and swirl in butter a half spoonful at a time. (You will have only a cup, just enough to moisten each serving.)
To serve, cut straight down through top of crust from neck to tail, and spread crust to sides of chicken. Remove legs and wings, and cut into serving pieces. Give each guest both white and dark meat, stuffing, and a piece of the crust; spoon a bit of the sauce over or around the meat.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: You may keep chicken warm for an hour, if necessary; let it sit out at room temperature for 20 minutes, then keep in a 120-degree oven (or in the turned-off oven, reheating briefly from time to time if necessary).
CHAPTER FIVE
Charcuterie: Sausages, Salted Pork and Goose, Pâtés and Terrines
THE FOUNDATION AND MAINSTAY of French charcuterie is pork in all its forms, from sausages and stuffings to hams, pâtés, and terrines. Chair cuite, meaning meat that is cooked, was obviously the derivation of this marvelous keystone of French civilization, but modern charcuterie shops, like American delicatessens, have branched out and sell all manner of edibles, such as aspics and ready-to-heat escargots, heat-and-serve lobster dishes, ready-made salads, mayonnaise, relishes, canned goods, fine wines, and liqueurs. In the best establishments, all the cooking is done on the premises; they cure their own hams, make their own salt pork and fresh and smoked sausages, have their own formulas for their beautiful display of pâtés. Let us all pray that this delicious way of life will long remain, because there are few things more satisfying to the soul than the look and smell of a French charcuterie.
SAUSAGES
Saucisses et Saucissons
With the virtual disappearance of European-style neighborhood charcuteries in this country, it behooves every serious cook to have a few sausage formulas on hand for such delicious concoctions as saucisson en croûte, saucisson en brioche, saucisson chaud et pommes à l’huile—that wonderfully simple dish of hot, sliced sausages and potato salad—little pork sausages for breakfast and garnitures, and those lovely white-meat sausages with truffles, boudins blancs. A sausage is only ground meat and seasonings, a mixture no more complicated than a meat loaf, and for fresh unsmoked sausages you need no special equipment at all. An electric meat grinder and a heavy-duty mixer will make things easier, but a sausage-stuffing mechanism and sausage casings are not necessary because you can use other means to arrive at the sausage shape. In French terminology a saucisse is primarily a small and thin sausage, usually fresh, and a saucisson is a large sausage usually smoked or otherwise cured; the one may be called the other, however, if it is a question of size. Here are directions for forming them in casings and a practical substitute for casings, as well as a short discussion on caul fat.
SAUSAGE CASINGS
Natural sausage casings, the flexible, tubular membrane that holds the sausage together and forms its skin, are made from the thoroughly scraped and cleaned intestines of hogs, cattle, and sheep, of the stomachs of hogs, and of the bladders of all three. Sheep casings are the most valuable and expensive of all, and also the most fragile; varying in diameter from ⅝ to 1 inch, they are used mostly for fresh pork breakfast sausages and the small cocktail or garnishing sausages called chipolatas. Beef casings are for large sausages like bolognas, salamis, and blood sausages, and middle sizes like cervelats and mettwursts. Hog casings come in various lengths and widths: bungs (gros boyaux), or the large intestine; hog middles (fuseaux), or the middle intestines; small casings (les menus), which are the small intestine.
The most practical and easily obtainable for the home sausage stuffer are small hog casings, the kind your butcher uses to make his fresh pork sausages or fresh Italian sausages. If he cannot supply you with a few pieces, he can order them for you; or look up in the classified telephone directory under Sausage Casings or Butcher’s Supplies. Ask for a set of small hog casings, medium width. You will get a bundle of 16 to 18 casings, each 20 feet long, which are twisted into a complicated swirl resembling wet spaghetti. To disentangle the pieces, unwind the set on a very large table. Then start with one piece from the middle and gently pull it through the maze, first on one side, then on the other. Disentangle all the pieces, winding each up on your fingers as you do so, like string. Pack the pieces between layers of coarse salt in a large screw-top jar and store in the refrigerator. They will keep safely for years as long as they are well covered with salt.
Before using a piece of casing, wash it off in cold water, then soak for one but not more than two hours in cold water. Any casing you do not use may be thoroughly rinsed inside and out, wound up again, and repacked with salt in your casing container.
How to use sausage casing
Casing is ideal for sausages because it holds the meat in perfect symmetry; the problem is finding a way to get the meat into these marvelous containers. Professionals use a stuffing machine, poussoir, which is a large cylinder with a pushing plate at one end and a nozzle at the other: the meat goes into the cylinder, the casing is slid up the outside of the nozzle, and a crank operates the plate, pushing the meat from the cylinder through the nozzle and into the casing, which slowly and evenly fills with meat as it slides off the nozzle. There are home models available from some butcher supply houses and mail-order sources; anyone going into serious sausage making should certainly have one, since alternatives can only be makeshift and more or less successful depending on your sausage mixture. Here are the alternatives, including hand stuffer, meat grinder, and pastry bag. You will work out your own system.
Whichever of the three methods you choose, you will need a nozzle of some sort onto the outside of which you slide the sausage casing. This can be a funnel, the metal tube that fits a professional-size pastry bag, or a regular sausage stuffing nozzle; whatever it is, we shall call it by its official name, stuffing horn. After the sausage casing has soaked for an hour in cold water, cut it into 2- to 3-foot lengths so it will be easy to deal with.
Wet horn in cold water; fit one end of a piece of casing onto the small end.
Hold the large end of the horn under a slowly running faucet of cold water, and push casing up outside with your fingers, being careful not to tear casing with your fingernails. If you have cut casing into lengths, string them all onto the horn, one after the other. To permit freedom of action, always leave 3 to 4 inches of empty casing dangling from end of horn and, unless your sausage mixture is very soft and liable to dribble out, do not knot end of casing until the whole length is filled.
With the casing in place, you are now ready to stuff it. Have in mind how long you want your sausages to be, how many, if any, you want linked together, and if they are to be linked, whether the meat mixture is soft enough so that you can safely twist the filled casing into lengths without bursting it. This is mostly a matter of trial and error; if you want no errors and have plenty of casing, fill and either link or cut and tie one sausage at a time. To minimize air spaces and bubbles, watch casing carefully as you are filling it; when air spaces develop, push filled casing against end of horn to force air back into stuffer. In severe instances, when you are making linked sausages, you will have to cut the casing, tie it, and start a new series of links.
A pastry bag works surprisingly well for either stiff or soft sausage mixtures. You will need 2 metal tubes 2 inches long with ½-inch openings at the small end. One is holding the casing around its outside; the other is fitted inside a 12- to 14-inch bag.
This oversize hypodermic consists of wooden plunger, cylinder, and detachable horn. It works well for soft mixtures like the boudin blanc.
For stiffer blends, you have to brace the end of the tube against the edge of a table. A pastry bag is easier in this case.
A stuffing horn of plastic or metal 4 inches long, ¾ inch in diameter at the small end, and 2¼ at the large end fits most grinders of the type illustrated here. The
y often come as extra equipment, or can be ordered from butcher or mail-order houses.
Sometimes the grinder is operated with cutting knife (a) and disk (b) as well as horn (c), and sometimes not; if you have no instructions, you will have to try both ways. Some meat grinders work fairly well as sausage stuffers; others are maddeningly unsatisfactory.
Operate meat grinder at slow speed if it is electric, and hold casing horizontal with horn as meat goes in; this is to avoid air bubbles. When sausage meat has gone into casing, slip a free 3 or 4 inches of empty casing from horn and cut off with scissors.
Tie a knot in the casing close against the meat at each end. For linked sausages, twist slowly and carefully to make the separations. Tie a piece of white string at each separation.
HOW TO FORM SAUSAGES IN CHEESECLOTH CASINGS
Cheesecloth works very well indeed as an alternative to professional casing when it is of no aesthetic importance that the sausage be perfectly symmetrical, such as those to be baked in pastry, served in slices, or crumbed and broiled. The following illustrations are for small sausages; large ones are formed in the same way.