cooking with chicken lunch the following day, enough for four people each time.
Moreover, because water is far more efficient than air at transporting heat, we were able to stuff the bird too, and cook the lot together. Whatever is left behind is put on the fire, the bones mostly, to add to the wood ash and used as fertilizer.
The downside: roasted chicken skin, which I love, but to be honest, there are so many wonderful flavours in this meal I didn’ t miss it that much. To be honest, I usually pick off the skin when carving the bird and share it with the dogs. The boiled skin was completely consumed by the dogs Monty and Pippin, who literally wolf it down.
The dish
It takes a little preparation to make this tasty dish in as much as it consists of a number of parts.
The meat
A 1.8 Kg chicken and a few slices of belly pork, around about 500 g, which are both boiled together.
The forcemeat stuffing
The origin of the word forcemeat comes from the action- you force the meat into the cavity, in other words to stuff.
I must confess to being a little worried. I am boiling the stuffed bird, and consequently, will the water soak in and make it into a serious slop? In truth, the consistency came out just perfect.
You can also bake the forcemeat, to give a kind of loaf that sets hard.
The vegetables
There are two sets of vegetables for this dish. The first is to flavour the stock and the second to serve at table. The first consists of all those vegetables at the bottom of the fridge, the old onion, the green tops of leeks, some cabbage, overly large and split carrots.
The second are whatever you want from potatoes to turnips. Once the chicken is cooked, the whole lot is removed from the stock, and the new vegetables are allowed to cook in the stock until they are tender.
Forcemeat
• 300 g breadcrumbs
• 2 garlic cloves
• 100 g gherkins
• 1 tbs Dijon mustard
• 3 rashers bacon
• 100 g belly pork
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 / 4 tspPepper
This stuffing is based around breadcrumbs, and all the ingredients are minced in a food processor. You can add all kinds of extra ingredients to this, such as chicken livers- indeed, if your chicken comes with giblets, or it is one of your own chickens, then all these can be used, the gizzard and head in the stock pan, the liver and heart and kidneys in the stuffing.
You can also add an egg for binding, but in this case, I wanted a looser stuffing.
Obviously we are going to stuff this into the bird, but you can just as easily roll, wrap in foil and bake in the oven at 180 C for 30 mins to get a loaf.
Forcemeat ingredients
Stuffing the bird
Wash the bird inside and out, and pat dry. Force all the stuffing into the cavity, really pushing it home with the spoon. Then pull the skin from the vent into position and it is time to truss the bird.
Stuff the bird with the forcemeat
“ Henry IV of France invented this 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.’”