Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (119 page)

2 Tb minced shallots or scallions

1 Tb butter and 1 tsp oil

3 chicken livers, cut into ⅜-inch pieces

A heavy-bottomed 2½- to 3-quart enameled or stainless saucepan

¼ cup dry (Sercial) Madeira or dry port

A mixing bowl

Sauté the mushrooms and scallions in butter and oil over moderately high heat, tossing and turning, until fat reappears on surface of mushrooms; then add diced livers and sauté a minute more, tossing. Pour in the Madeira or port and boil rapidly until liquid is almost entirely evaporated. Scrape into mixing bowl.

2¼ to 2½ cups plain boiled white rice (¾ cup raw rice, boiled in salted water until barely tender)

¼ tsp thyme or oregano

1 egg, lightly beaten

The cooked garlic in its broth

A fine-meshed sieve

Salt and pepper to taste

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 PÂTE—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.)