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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