www. citycottage. co. uk
Poule
au Pot
Paul and Diana dust off the stock pot to make this delicious French dish...
This recipe is the brainchild of Henry IV of France who, despite having 56 mistresses, was happily married to his second wife, Marie de Medici, who was addicted to eating globe artichokes for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities, and having ended religious wars and rebuilt French commerce and industry, turned what remained of his energies to improving the lot of the peasants of France.
This is his recipe, saying,‘ If I were granted more years to live I would make it so every family in the
Kingdom could have a chicken for dinner each Sunday.’
Brilliant idea
No one had ovens in the sixteenth century, save the baker, so almost all meat was either spit roasted or cooked in a pot on the fire. Almost every home, these days, has an oven, and when it comes to cooking chicken, the first thing we think of is roasting it.
So what do you get when you roast?
Lovely skin- certainly because the sugars caramelize and give a seriously savoury flavour.
Some stock- certainly, juices fall out of the bird into the pan, which can be used for gravy or sauce. However, some of the juices evaporate, and keeping chicken stock from the roasting of a bird is not that easy.
We tend to boil up bones, where some of the juices and therefore goodness and flavour has been removed in the roasting.
Sometimes incomplete cooking- because air is a good insulator, and so a 180 C oven is not really translated into cooking heat because there isn’ t all that much heat hitting the bird. Consequently, we tend not to stuff birds these days in the oven to allow the heat to get to the bones inside the carcass, killing bacteria such as salmonella.
So what’ s the brilliant idea?
Poule au pot is cooked in a large pot, in boiling water for 90 minutes, with all kinds of flavourings. It took 2 litres of water, and I got copious quantities of brilliant stock, and amazing flavoured sauce, plus cooked vegetables. Enough for three meals: an enormous feast for lunch, a snack sandwich in the evening and soup for