The Essential James Beard Cookbook (29 page)

POULTRY AND GAME BIRDS

Perfect Roast Chicken

Poached Chicken

Poached Chicken with Light Dumplings

Braised Lemon Chicken

Chicken in the Pot

Chicken Sauté with Tomato

Coq au Vin

Jeanne Owen’s Sauté with Tarragon

Old-Fashioned Chicken Fricassee with Wagon Wheels

Country Captain

Creole Fried Chicken

Curried Chicken

Djaj M’Kalli

Poulet au Vinaigre

Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Baked Mustard Chicken

Chicken Legs with Paprika and Sour Cream

Oven-Fried Chicken Legs

Chicken Maryland

John Beard’s Sautéed Chicken

Chicken Crêpes

Superb Chicken Hash

Pennsylvania Dutch Chicken “Pot Pie”

Baked Chicken Pot Pie

Club House Sandwich

Chicken Tetrazzini

Roast Stuffed Cornish Game Hen

Basic Roast Turkey

Braised Turkey Wings

Turkey Chili

Turkey Mole

Duck Glazed with Curry and Honey

Roast Duck with Oranges

Roast Duckling au Poivre

Roasted Stuffed Wild Duck

Roast Holiday Goose with Apples and Prunes

Sauté of Quail with White Grapes

Sautéed Pheasant with Calvados and Apples

PERFECT ROAST CHICKEN

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

A simple dish, but one of the best when it is properly cooked. Allow one-quarter chicken for each serving, but you may want to cook an extra chicken to accommodate white-meat or dark-meat eaters. Leftover chicken is never a problem.

One 4- to 4½-pound chicken

Half of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon or 1 teaspoon dried

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 bacon strips

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Rinse the chicken under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Freshen the cavity by rubbing it with the half lemon. Place the tarragon in the cavity. Rub the outside of the chicken with a seasoning of salt and pepper. Place the chicken on its side on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Drape the bacon strips over it. Roast in a preheated 400°F oven for 25 minutes. Remove the bacon, turn the chicken on its other side, and cover with the same strips of bacon. Roast for another 25 minutes, basting once during that time. Turn the chicken breast side up, remove the bacon, and brush the chicken with melted butter. Roast for another 30 to 35 minutes, or until the skin is crisp and the legs can be moved easily. Do not overcook. [
See Editor’s Note
.]

Remove the chicken from the oven and allow the juices to settle for 5 to 10 minutes or so before carving the chicken into quarters. Skim off the grease from the pan juices, and spoon the juices over the chicken.

Editor: When Beard wrote these poultry recipes, few people used a meat thermometer to judge the doneness of their roast chicken. The usual method was to pierce the cooked bird with the tines of a meat fork to release the juices onto a white saucer, and check the color of the juices. If the juices were clear or yellowish, the bird was done; if they had any hint of pink, the bird was considered undercooked, and returned to the oven for more roasting.

Today, an instant-read thermometer is a common gauge for checking temperatures of meat and poultry. For roast chicken, insert the thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, not touching a bone. The temperature should register 165°F to 170°F, keeping in mind that it will rise from carry-over cooking, as the bird’s temperature will continue to climb for a few degrees, even though it is out of the oven. We have retained the original suggestions for checking for doneness, but the thermometer is more reliable.

POACHED CHICKEN

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

To poach a chicken sounds deceptively simple—and that may be the reason so many birds are cooked too long or at too high heat until the flesh is dry, grainy, stringy, and flavorless. For moist, succulent poached chicken, the liquid should be kept at the gentlest simmer and the bird removed when the breast is firm to the touch and the legs barely wiggle when moved. On no account should it be cooked until the skin shrinks and breaks and the flesh starts to fall from the bone. Good accompaniments are boiled or puréed potatoes, steamed rice, or buttered noodles. If you want a creamy sauce, whisk 3 egg yolks with 1 cup heavy cream and add to 1 cup
Sauce Velouté
made with some of the poaching liquid. Stir into the pot of cooking liquid and heat until slightly thickened, but do not allow to boil. Season to taste with chopped fresh tarragon. For a green vegetable, you might have tiny buttered green peas or green peas and little pearl onions. If you want to use the chicken for cold dishes, such as chicken salad, it will yield about 4 to 4½ cups meat.

Matzoh Stuffing for Chicken or Turkey

Makes about 4 cups

Editor: Unless the chicken is very large, you will have leftover stuffing. Stuff the chicken loosely with the matzoh mixture. Put the excess stuffing in a buttered shallow dish and bake in the oven with the bird for about 20 minutes, or until heated through. For a turkey, double the recipe.

Giblets, chopped

2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped

3 tablespoons butter, or rendered fat from the bird

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

5 to 8 matzohs

4 large egg yolks, beaten

1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

¼ teaspoon dried marjoram

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

In a skillet, sauté the chopped giblets and onions in the butter or rendered fat from the bird. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer the giblets and onions to a bowl.

Soak matzohs in water to cover in a bowl until they are soft. Drain, squeeze dry, and add to the fat in the skillet in which you sautéed the giblets. Stir well over a very low heat and to firm them slightly, and add to the giblets. Add the egg yolks, ginger, thyme, marjoram, and nutmeg. Blend well and correct the seasoning.

One 4- to 5-pound chicken

1 medium yellow onion, stuck with 1 whole clove

1 bay leaf

1 to 2 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley

2 to 3 garlic cloves

1 thin sliver lemon zest

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

About 1½ quarts
Chicken Stock
, canned chicken broth, or water, as needed

1 tablespoon kosher salt

Put the chicken in a deep pot with the onion, bay leaf, parsley, garlic, lemon zest, and pepper. Add stock barely to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat. Skim off the scum that rises to the surface and reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the salt, cover the pot, and cook at the gentlest simmer (the water should not bubble, but merely move) for 50 minutes to 1¼ hours, or until the breast is firm but still moist and the legs can be wiggled. Transfer the chicken to a hot platter and strain the broth. Cut the chicken into serving pieces. [ED:
For a sauce suggestion, see the headnote
here
.]

VARIATIONS

POACHED CHICKEN WITH VEGETABLES:
Add thinly sliced carrots and tiny white onions to the pot during the last 30 minutes of cooking time. Serve with the chicken, some of the broth, and separately boiled potatoes.

POACHED CHICKEN WITH GARLIC:
Simmer 15 to 20 unpeeled large garlic cloves with the chicken. Serve these with the chicken, to be squeezed from the husks and spread on thin slices of French bread.

POACHED CHICKEN WITH LIGHT DUMPLINGS

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

Editor: Here is another dish that James must have learned at his mother’s side when she was running her hotel business.

For the Poached Chicken

One 5- to 6-pound chicken

Half of 1 lemon

Several sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley

2 quarts cold water, as needed

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and stuck with 2 or 3 whole cloves

8 whole black peppercorns

Dash of freshly grated nutmeg

1 bay leaf

Kosher salt

For the Light Dumplings

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon plus 1½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup whole milk

Finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

To poach the chicken: Rub the chicken, inside and out, with the lemon half. Put the parsley sprigs in the cavity of the chicken and truss with kitchen twine. Put in a deep pot and cover with cold water. Add the onion, peppercorns, nutmeg, and bay leaf, and season lightly with salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove the scum that rises to the surface of the cooking liquid, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cover tightly. Simmer until tender and the meat shows no sign of pink when pierced with the tip of a small sharp knife at the thighbone, about 1¼ hours. Do not overcook or you will have a stringy mess. Transfer the chicken to a hot platter and cover with aluminum foil to keep it warm. Strain the broth, return to the pot, and boil over high heat until reduced to about 1 quart and nicely flavored, about 20 minutes.

To make the dumplings: Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Add the milk and toss together lightly with a fork to make a sticky dough. Reduce the heat under the broth to medium-low. Drop the dough by heaping dessertspoons into the gently boiling broth. Cover the pot tightly and allow to cook until the dumplings have risen, 13 minutes to the dot. Transfer the dumplings to a serving bowl with a slotted spoon and cover with aluminum foil to keep them warm.

To serve: First ladle the soup into bowls, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve as a soup course. For the main course, carve the chicken, sprinkle it and the dumplings with more chopped parsley, and serve.

VARIATION

POACHED CHICKEN WITH NELLIE COX’S DUMPLINGS:
Mix
2 cups all-purpose flour
,
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
, and
½
teaspoon salt.
Add enough
water
to make a stiff dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and pat or roll out to thickness of
¹
⁄
₈
inch. Cut into 1- by 3-inch pieces. Drop into the gently boiling broth and cook for 20 minutes, uncovered, stirring frequently to keep them from sticking together. Transfer to a serving bowl with a slotted spoon.