Some Recipes for Preparing Poultry
By Kurt Heppe
Fowls should be divided into four classes, according to their uses. The uses are controlled by the age of the fowl.
What is suitable for one dish is not suitable for others. In fowls the age of the bird controls the use to which it can be put. This is something the caterer and the housewife must remember.
A young bird can be distinguished from an old one by the pliability of the tip of the breastbone. When this tip bends under pressure, then the bird is young. If it is hard and unyielding, then it is old.
Very old birds are used for soup and for fricassée.
Medium-aged birds are used for roasts.
Spring chickens are used for broilers and for sautéed dishes.
Very young chicks are used for frying in deep fat; for this purpose they are dipped in a thin batter, or else in flour, and in eggs mixed with milk and afterward in breadcrumbs. These chicks, and also spring chickens, are used for casserole dishes and for cocottes (covered earthen ware containers, in which the fowls are roasted in the oven).
The liver of fowls is used in different ways; it makes an excellent dish. It is best when sautéed with black butter. Some of the fine French ragouts consist mostly of chicken livers.
With omelettes they make an incomparable garnish.
In very high-class establishments the wings and breast are often separated from the carcass of the fowl and served in manifold ways. Sometimes the entire fowl is freed of bones, without destroying the appearance of the bird. These latter dishes are best adapted for casserole service and for cold jellied offerings.
Capons are castrated male fowls. They fatten readily and their flesh remains juicy and tender, owing to the indolence of the birds. The meat of animals is tenderest when the animal is kept inactive. For this reason stall-feeding is often resorted to. When the animal has no opportunity to exercise its muscles the latter degenerate, and nourishment, instead of being converted into energy, is turned into fat. Range birds and animals are naturally tough; this is especially true of the muscles.
Large supply houses now regularly basket their fowls for about two weeks before putting them on the market. During this time they are fed on grain soaked in milk. This produces a white, juicy flesh.
When a bird is to be roasted it should be trussed. This is done by forcing the legs back against the body (after placing the bird on its back); a string is then tied across the bird's body, holding the legs down. The wings are best set firmly against the breast by sticking a wooden skewer through the joint and into the bony part of the carcass, where the skewer will hold against the bones.
In preparing birds for the oven their breasts should be protected by slices of bacon. Otherwise they will shrivel and dry before the birds are cooked.
For broiling, the birds are cut through in the back, in such a manner that they quasi-hinge in the breast; they are then flattened so they will lie evenly in a double broiling iron; for this purpose the heavy backbone is removed.
Stuffed Poularde
After trussing the bird rub it with lemon so it will keep of good color; now cover the breast with thin slices of bacon (these can be tied on). The poularde is put into a deep, thick saucepan and cooked with butter and aromatics in the oven. When it is nearly done it is moistened with poultry stock. If this stock reduces too fast, then it must be renewed. It is finally added to the sauce.
These fowls may be stuffed with a pilaff of rice. This is prepared as follows: Half an onion is chopped and fried in two ounces of butter. Before it acquires color half a pound of Carolina rice is added. This is stirred over the fire until the rice has partly taken up the butter; then it is moistened with consommé (one quart); and covered and cooked in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes. It is now combined with a little cream, a quarter a pound of dice of goose liver and some dice of truffles.
The rice should not be entirely cooked by the time it is stuffed into the bird; the cooking is completed inside the bird. The cream is added to provide moisture for the rice to take up.
Instead of cream one may use consommé, and the truffles and fat liver may be left out, if too expensive.
The bird is served with a suitable sauce.
The best sauce for this purpose is Sauce Suprême, and is prepared as follows: Put two pints of clear poultry stock and some mushroom-liquor into a sauté-pan. Reduce two-thirds.
While this is going on prepare some poultry velouté by bringing some butter in a pan to bubble, and adding some flour. This is brought to a boil while stirring constantly. The flour must not be allowed to color. Now, gradually, add some poultry-stock, stirring all the while with a whisk. Salt, pepper and nutmeg are added. This is simmered on the side of the fire, and then strained.
Now add one pint of this velouté to the suprême sauce; reduce the whole on an open fire, while constantly stirring. Gradually add half a pint of good cream and finish with a little butter.
Sautéed Chicken
Young chickens should be used for this purpose. Feel the breast bone; if it bends beneath pressure the bird is right.
Empty, singe and clean, and disjoint the bird. This is done by cutting the skin at the joints and loosening the bones with a knife.
The wings are cut off in such manner that each holds half of the breast; the pinions are entirely cut off; the different pieces are seasoned with salt and pepper; now heat some clarified butter in a sauté-pan; when it is very hot insert the pieces of chicken and let them color quickly; turn them over, from time to time, so as to get a uniform color; cover the utensil and put it in a fairly hot oven. The legs are cooked for about ten minutes more than the breast and wings. The latter are kept hot separately.
When all pieces are done, they are dished on a platter and kept hot in the oven; the pan is now moistened with mushroom-liquor, or chicken stock, and again put on the fire; only a very little moistening is put in the pan. As soon as it boils swing it around the pan and then add to it, gradually, the sauce that is to be served. This swinging in the pan dissolves the flavor, which solidifies in the bottom of the pan; it greatly improves the sauce.
A simple sauce for sautéed chicken is nut butter, that is, butter browned in the pan. This may be varied by flavoring it with a crushed garlic-clove. An addition of fine herbs will further improve it. A dark tomato sauce may also be served.
A good garnish for sautéed chicken is large dice of boletus mushrooms, sautéed in garlic butter; also dice of raw potatoes sautéed in clarified butter, and again fresh tomatoes cut up and sautéed in butter. Egg-plants are also excellent for a garnish.
Sautéed chicken may be baked and served in the cocotte.
Poulet en Casserole Bourgeoise
The chicken is trussed; the breast is covered with strips of bacon and put into a deep, thick saucepan. It is colored in the oven, and when nearly done is transferred to a casserole. It is now moistened with some chicken-stock and a little white wine. This moistening is used in the basting, and after being freed of fat, added to the sauce.
A few minutes before the fowl is done bouquets of fresh vegetables are added to the chicken, in individual heaps, and the chicken is then served, either with a sauce, or else with an addition of butter. It should be carved in sight of the guests.
Chicken Pie
A fowl is cooked (boiled) with flavoring vegetables until done, and is then cut up as for fricassée; the pieces are seasoned with salt and pepper and sprinkled with chopped onions, a few mushroom-buttons and some chopped parsley. The pieces are now put into a pie-dish, legs undermost, some thinly-sliced bacon is added and some potatoes Parisienne (spooned with the special potato spoon). The pie-dish is now filled two-thirds with chicken velouté (chicken-stock thickened with flour and egg-yolks), and a pie crust is laid over all, pressed to the edges of the dish and trimmed off. The crust is slit open (so the steam can escape), it should be painted with egg-yolk, and be baked for one and a half hours in a moderate oven.
Suprême de Volaille Jeanette
Of a poached cold fowl the suprêmes (boneless wing and breast in one piece) are loosened and trimmed to oval shape. They are covered with white chaudfroid sauce, by putting the pieces on a wire tray and pouring the sauce over while still liquid. They are decorated with tarragon leaves.
In a square, flat pan a half-inch layer of aspic is laid. On this slices of goose liver are superimposed (after having been trimmed to the shape of the suprêmes); the suprêmes are now put on top of the fat liver, and then covered with half-melted chicken jelly.
When thoroughly cooled and ready to serve, a square piece is cut out of the now solid jelly around the suprêmes. The suprême is thus served incrusted in a square block of thick jelly; the dish is decorated with greens.
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It is to be supposed that when a man gives up the comforts of town apartments and hies him to the country, it is the garden, the outdoors, which lures him.
Why is it, then, that he seems to take particular pains to arrange his garden so that it is about as much his own as Central Park is?
It might give the average man a great deal of pleasure to be able to say to all the passersby on the Mall, "This little bit of the Park belongs to me! I cut that grass, I weed those flower beds in the evening when I come home from the office; and every Saturday afternoon I take the hose and thoroughly soak that bit of lawn there, you may see me at it any week in the summer."
But then, we are not dealing with the fictitious average man, and we firmly believe that many "commuters" wonder deep down in their hearts why it is they get from their gardens so little of the pleasure they anticipated when they came to live out of the city.
Any one who has traveled abroad, has admired and perhaps coveted the gardens of England, France, and Italy. Their charm is undeniable, and thought to be too elusive for reproduction on American soil without the aid of landscape gardeners and a fair-sized fortune.
Just why we, as a nation, are beset by the idea of reproducing instead of originating beautiful gardens is a question apart from this discussion. But as soon as we try to develop, to their fullest extent, the advantages of our climate, and soil, in combination with our daily life as a people, we shall produce gardens which will equal, without necessarily resembling, those of other countries.
In every case we must, however, follow the same procedure which every successful garden is built upon, whether it be in Mesopotamia or in Long Island City. That is, we must study the place, the people, and the circumstances.
The most general fault in American gardens is their lack of privacy.
No one claims that the high walls of Italy and France or the impenetrable hedges of England would invariably suit the climate here. But there are many ways to obtain seclusion without in any way depriving us of much-needed air in summer and sun in winter. One way is by placing the house rationally upon its lot. Our custom has been to invariably build so that we had a "front yard," "back yard," and two side yards, all equally important, equally uninteresting, unbeautiful and useless.
Of course, we have the porch which in a way takes the place of the outdoor living room, always so attractive in foreign gardens. And recently some laudable efforts are being made to incorporate the porch into the house, where it belongs, as a real American institution, instead of leaving it disconsolately clinging to the outside and bearing no resemblance to the house either in shape or detail.
But after all, a porch is a porch, and a garden is a garden, and one does not take the place of the other.
Especially is this true of the tiny property.
If you have only ten feet of ground to spare outside your tiny house, plan it so that every foot contributes to your joy at being in the country. Arrange it so that on a warm summer evening when the porch seems a bit close and dark, you wander out into your garden and sit beneath the stars in quiet as profound as on the Desert of Sahara. And in the winter, let your garden provide a warm corner out of the wind, where on a bright Sunday morning you may sit and blink in the sun.
Once you have got the desire for a room outdoors, a real garden, which is neither flower beds, nor lawns, nor hedges, nor trees, but a place for your comfort, with all these things contributing to its beauty, you will know as by divine inspiration where to put each flower and bush and path. Your planting will be no longer a problem for landscape architects, but a pleasant occupation for yourself and family.
So then will your successful tiny house stand forth in its real garden, an object of pride to the community and a tribute to one man who has refused to be the impossible average, and has dared to build and plant for his own needs.
May he live forever and ever happy in his tiny house!