Poularde Grasse – Fat Chicken
My previous post of this got deleted because I forgot the rules – my bad.
The original recipe is from a 17th century cookbook called
Le Cuisinier Francois by Francois de La Varenne. It was somewhat modernized by Esther B. Aresty in her 1964 food history
The Delectable Past. I'm re-writing it in a more modern format than Aresty had, with my comments.
For pate:
1 chicken liver, sautéed in butter
1 hard cooked egg
1 medium onion, finely chopped and sautéed in butter until soft and turning brown
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
more melted butter as needed
Force the liver and egg through a coarse strainer. (This was the first time I'd ever done this & it was not easy! Considering how it all gets mushed together, a food processor might work as well.) Combine with the onion, salt, and pepper. Blend thoroughly. If necessary, add more melted butter to obtain a creamy texture. (I did not end up with a creamy texture, but it was still good. Next time I'll try running it thru the blender.)
Season a tender roasting chicken inside and out, according to taste. (My taste is: don't bother. There is so much wonderful flavor from the pate no other seasoning is needed. Also, don't rinse. Unless you have just butchered the chicken yourself. Then you'll want to rinse off the blood.) Place in roasting pan. (I used my biggest cast iron pan – it works beautifully as a roasting pan.) Spread the pate thinly over the breast and drumsticks. Place in preheated oven (350 degrees) with a clove-studded onion. (I was so concerned about overwhelming the chicken with onion & clove flavor, I took 2 wedges of onion before chopping it and stuck in a total of 8 cloves. Could have easily been 2 or even 3 times as many cloves – I didn't taste them at all. On the other hand, no more onion flavor was needed. The chicken was a bit on the small side.) Set the timer for 20 minutes.
After putting the chicken in the oven, slice 6 - 8 mushrooms and sauté in butter. Once they are soft, chop them fine. (Next time I'll just get a can of minced mushrooms. By the time it's all cooked, you'll never know the difference between fresh & canned.)
When the 20 minutes are up, pour the mushrooms and the butter they were cooked in over the chicken. Baste every 20 minutes; this will cause the pate to run off into the pan. (Didn't do that for me. I think the pate was too thick. I finally scraped it off into the pan so the skin would brown.) If more liquid is needed, add a small quantity of chicken broth, or a dissolved chicken bouillon cube. Three bastings at 20 minute intervals, and the bird should be ready for the table. (I ended up using a cup of bouillon for basting. For some reason, it took longer for my chicken, but it all turned out well.)
Before serving, disjoint it and arrange the pieces attractively on a serving platter. Garnish with fluted mushroom caps. (Being an all-thumbs sort of person, the pieces were
not arranged attractively! Next time, I'll just use chicken pieces to start with.)
Add additional broth to the pan juices to make sufficient gravy; the chopped mushrooms and liver pate make this gravy with considerable body. (As I added a cup of broth for basting, I didn't add any more. My “gravy” was pretty chunky as the onions should have been minced more finely or blended. The mushrooms were fine.)
Family opinion: We all loved it!
Leftovers: I heated up the “gravy” (need a better word for it) and put it in small bowls. It made a great dipping sauce for the re-heated chicken. Kind of like a French Dip sandwich, but with chicken & forks instead of beef and bread.
Ran out of chicken before running out of sauce. So a few days later I had some chicken thighs. Cooked them as usual but spread the last of the sauce/gravy on some of them before cooking. Didn't bother with basting as thighs take only an hour to roast. The mushroom/onion mix on top put me in mind of stuffing. Very yummy.
I also used 2 cups of the leftover chicken in my very own Crunchy Chicken Salad. I'll make a 2nd post for that.
For a small chicken, we got a lot of meals out of it! I've still got a small pot of broth from boiling the bones to make soup with.
17th century LC chicken recipe - re-do
Linear Mode
