Fruitcake is more than something to just give away. It’s a culinary delight and tradition of greatness.
Ken Albala, food historian, shares some of the history of the fruitcake. It has a rather impressive history. And, yes, there are some things to dread about them. Certainly you should try making on at home.
Poultry, chapter 8, is an impressively long chapter. Nearly all of that are recipes for the various birds, chicken, duck, turkey, and pigeon. Excluded are pheasant, partridge, and quail. I don’t know if farmed game was a thing in France a hundred years ago. It certainly is a thing here, now.
There is one chief issue between Escoffier’s writing and us today and that is how much bigger the chickens have been made to be.
Yes, they’ve been made bigger. That’s a curious topic and maybe another show.
Also, it seems the selection of kinds of birds has been reduced to only a few. Just from memory it seems the choice of birds I see at the store is a choice of two: take it or leave it. Gone, at least where I shop, are the choices of broiler or fryer or roaster or young chicken. I’m not sure if I’m remembering right, just not paying attention in the store, or, if in fact, that is the case.
I’m going to avoid using his terms for chickens since they don’t really seem to fit what we see in the store and focus just on large or small. Even that’s relative. What is certain is the older the bird is, and weight is as sure a way of determing age as anything, the tougher the meat will be if cooker poorly. Large chicken breasts will tend toward tougher if grilled on high heat—and I know someone has done that just fine. It’s not impossible, but younger, smaller birds are better suited to high heat cooking. Lower the grill heat for larger birds and longer cooking can produce good result.
Escoffier does not suggest braising large chickens. The most famous braised chicken dish might be Coq au Vin, which is not in his book. It is rooster marinaded in red wine and braised and it is a delight.
There’s a lot of basting of birds in Le Guide Culinaire. I’m not certain I’m on board with that practice. Anecdotally, my grandma basted her turkey and it was famous for being as dry as sand and about as palatable. Those two things might not be related.
Service of chicken in a Classical French dining room meant the Maitre d’ would serve the chicken. Leg quarters were held in the kitchen for other uses. He writes a bit extensively about how this ought to be carried out, noting that such service is lacking in many establishments.
Service in such a manner seems a bit over the top today.
One chief issue I experience with roasting whole birds is the legs and breasts are done at different temperatures. To fully cook the thighs is to overcook the breast. The easiest way to solve this is to split the thighs from the chicken, remove the back bone from the main frame and roast the breast unit as one piece and the leg quarters on their own rack lined sheet pan.
Perhaps the best cut is the chicken breast. Bone in and skin on has the most flavor. Costs matter, and chicken is getting expensive. Buying a whole bird does allow for a stock to be made from the remaining bones, which is less likely to happen with a package of bone in skin on breasts. Too few bones remain.
Now that I’ve set it up, here’s the twist. For the portion he calls filet and supreme are the same thing and that is breast meat only, no winglet (his phrase which is fun to say) and no skin.
The breast filet can be cut into thinner portions by slicing through the breast meat horizontally. At home we don’t have to cut that meat into heart shapes, which he writes should be done.
The filet is then seasoned, floured and browned in clarified butter in a very hot pan. The purpose of speed is to cook the meat in the pan on the stove, turning the meat once. Meat that is too thick and cannot cook through quickly risks burning the outside before the inside is cooked, taking too long to cook and drying out the surface to make the middle finished, and/or toughening the whole of it.
Escoffier mentions that such a filet should be served immediately. But, there’s a catch. The pan has all that lovely glaze which should be part of the sauce. What to do? Hold the chicken in a separate pan near the stove top while you deglaze the pan with some stock. Swirl the pan to help loosen the bits that remain and finish the sauce with a small piece of butter, swirliing the pan to emulsify the butter into the sauce.
Chicken, even a breast portion like the one above, will benefit from a few minutes of resting.
Here’s one recipe from the book. It’s recipe number 3159, Supreme de Volaille, Maryland.
I’m going to move to and end with sautèes. For the sautè recipes, the chicken is deboned from the back, keeping the breast meat intact. Only if it is large is the breast divided at the sternum. Winglets are removed and the thighs deboned. Skin is left on. Season with salt and pepper and color them quickly on all sides. Cover the pan and finish cooking in a fairly hot oven. Restaurants use full blast, usually 500 degrees. 450 is hot enough at home.
Take care to attend to the leg and thighs. Bone out thighs will cook faster. A good instant read thermometer is a good help here. As with any pan that has glaze in it, remove the chicken, pour off some of the fat—you can save that for later use, like for your eggs the next day—and deglaze the pan with the appropriate liquid for the finished dish. Reduce by half and add the sauce to the pan and the heated chicken and simmer to reheat the chicken.
Now, that sounds like a lot of work and a great way to make crispy skin soft.
He offers a procedure for a white sautè, which keeps the chicken is “stiffened in hot butter without colouring them” then finished in the oven as for brown sautèes. I suppose the skin gets crisp. Frankly, I’ve never done it. Flacid chicken skin doesn’t seem appealing to me and I never served a chicken dish that wasn’t crispy. I don’t think many Americans have a palate for that.
There is turkey and duck to cover which should be fast. Some of his procedures take effort and time. Some of them are absolutely worth doing. Forcemeat mousseline is one of them. It doesn’t sound very nice. It is, however, a very versatile and useful procedure, especially with holiday’s coming and hors d’ouerve needs upcoming.
