Friday, July 19, 2013

Poulet En Cocotte, Sur Le Barbecue


I usually prepare my casserole-roasted chicken by first browning the flavored, trussed whole bird in a skillet, then sealing and slowly roasting it inside of one of my old French earthenware pots from Vallauris. Unfortunately my batterie de cuisine is packed away in a distant storage unit, and I'm adrift— homeless and unemployed— this summer.

In exchange for a week-or-so use of a couch, I'm doing the cooking at my temporary digs and, as there are no earthenware cocottes here, and the weather is fine, I've modified my usual technique to make use of a barbecue grill. The grill is makeshift; It's a broken propane-fueled grill which, through the removal of valves, hoses and regulators, and the addition of a bent sheet of steel, I've converted to charcoal use. The rôle of the earthenware poelon has been filled by a lovely old Griswold cast-iron kettle. The chicken is filled with flavorings, trussed, and then browned on the grid, right above the hot coals. The bird then goes into the kettle, along with a scatter of aromatic vegetables, and cooks for about 50 minutes.

The flavor of the cooked bird is different than the skillet/earthenware pan version: it's smoky, more savory, more assertive, and the juices from roasting and deglazing the kettle are dark brown instead of a light ochre color. If you've a grill, a casserole and a chicken, give it a try!

Recipe after the jump:

Palladian's Poulet En Cocotte, Sur Le Barbecue

Equipment/Ingredients:
  • 1 whole chicken, preferably a "roasting" chicken, about 4-5 pounds
  • A lidded cast-iron casserole or kettle, large enough to hold your chicken. I used an old, well-seasoned Griswold pot, as I mentioned above, but a Le Creuset enameled casserole of the right size would also work beautifully.
  • Rendered chicken, duck or goose fat, or lard, or olive oil, for the pot.
Internal Chicken Flavoring:
  • 1/2 lemon, cut into several pieces
  • 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
  • a few celery leaves
  • 5 sprigs parsley (or 2 tbsp dried parsley)
  • 1 shallot, minced (or 2 scallions, minced)
  • 2 (or more) cloves garlic, unpeeled and slightly crushed
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • salt & black pepper
  • 1 Turkish bay leaf (Try to find bay leaves labelled "Turkish" or "Imported". These are the true bay leaves, Laurus nobilis, used to crown Apollo and ancient Olympic athletes, and possessing the best flavor. The American "bay leaf" comes from a different species, Umbellularia californica, and have a different, harsher, flavor. If your bay leaves don't specify, use only 1/2 a leaf)
External Chicken Flavoring:
  • about 3 tablespoons softened butter
  • 1 or 2 tablespoons Colman's Dry Mustard (or any ground, dry mustard)
  • salt & black pepper
Aromatics:
  • 1 small onion, roughly chopped
  • 1 medium carrot, roughly chopped
  • 1 Turkish bay leaf
  • a sprig or two fresh of thyme (or a tsp dried thyme)
For The Sauce:
  • about 1 cup chicken stock (homemade or store-bought)
  • 1 cup dry white wine, or a dry French vermouth (Noilly Prat or Dolin)

Remove giblet package. Remove the fat pads at the cavity opening. Dry your chicken with paper towels, inside and out. Remove the tip of the wing at the first joint with a good knife or poultry shears. Remove the wishbone. Salt & pepper the cavity. Stuff all of the "Internal Chicken Flavoring" into the bird's cavity. Truss the chicken. Mix the "External Chicken Flavoring" ingredients together, and rub this mixture all over the outside of the trussed chicken. Salt & pepper the exterior of the chicken.

Heat your barbecue grill. Brown the chicken on the grid of your grill: begin on the chicken's back, then flip it onto its side, then flip it onto the breasts, then flip it onto its other side, (then, if necessary, stand it up and brown it on the neck end, and then on the vent end). When handling the chicken, do your best not to rip the skin. Browning should take about 10-15 minutes, total. Set the browned chicken aside.

Place your cast iron casserole or kettle on the barbecue's grid, about an inch above the coals (or gas jets), and heat in it the rendered fat (or olive oil). When the fat is hot, add the Aromatics and cook them for several minutes, stirring all the time. Place your browned chicken in the casserole/kettle, on top of the Aromatics, and cover the casserole/kettle tightly. Close the lid of your barbecue grill (if applicable), and let the chicken cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the thigh is 165º F. Check the casserole/kettle several times during cooking; it should be making fairly quiet cooking sounds, not a fast sizzling. If it's sizzling too fast, move it to a different, cooler part of the grid.

When the chicken is cooked, remove it to a hot platter. The chicken should "rest" for 10-15 minutes before carving.

Sauce

In the mean-time, heat the chicken stock, and the wine/vermouth, to the simmer in a small saucepan.

Pour the cooking liquid from the casserole/kettle, through a fine-mesh strainer, into a fat separator or bowl, making sure to press any liquid out of the cooked Aromatics. Put the casserole/kettle on a stovetop (or back on the grill) and get it hot. Add the hot chicken stock/wine mixture to the hot casserole/kettle and use a wooden spatula, scraper or spoon to thoroughly deglaze the casserole/kettle. Pour the resulting liquid into the fat separator/bowl, along with the chicken cooking liquid, and then pour off the fat, using the fat separator, or remove as much fat as you can from the top of this liquid using a spoon

Serve the chicken with this natural jus, or mix the hot jus with a cooked roux, to make a thickened sauce velouté.

27 comments:

Darcy said...

Oh, my. That sounds delicious, Palladian. I'm going to bookmark.

Totally different recipe, but have you tried Julia Child's Chicken Fricassee recipe from her cookbook? This kind of reminded me of what trying that recipe taught me. I spent hours making it and was annoyed that it just ended up looking like - well, any other chicken recipe when it was done. And then my son and I tasted it. One of the best meals we've ever had.

I am sorry to hear about your present circumstances and wish you well.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Good grief man, that seems like a lot of work!

You have my admiration.

rhhardin said...

I do the Tyson precooked breast pieces.

Place in steamer basket.

Eat.

Whose cartoon was that, long ago, a diner in the desert with a huge EAT sign, approached by a monster. Guy in diner : "My God, do you think it can read?"

Karen of Texas said...

Wow, Palladian. That sounds amazing. I envy you your patience and admire your knowledge of the culinary arts. Would that more people savored and appreciated such things.

Joe Schmoe said...

Guess that beats the "Poulet En Cannette de Biere" recipe I was going to post on an open thread.

Phil 314 said...

Once again confirming that all the great chefs are...

Karen of Texas said...

Spys?

Michael Haz said...

Thanks. My plans for this evening's dinner have just been changed.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Great first post.

We don't do much grill prep work here. We have a numbers issue. People show up and keep coming and eating.

I try to keep the grill clean.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I grill on one of those little Weber Smokey Joes.

It's just the right size.

But I had to take a Bosch jig saw to the bottom of it to increase the ventilation.

That took me a good, long while and you should have heard the racket!

I was most likely drunk at the time.

chickelit said...

I do my favorite pollo recipe on a Weber gas grill using a spit roaster accessory which is a motor driven rotisserie: photo Spit roasting is ancient technology.

Start with 5-6 lb whole roasting chicken--usually a free range one from Trader Joe's. Skewer one end of the bird and then skewer two lemons such that they are inside the bird. Add a couple sprigs of rosemary. The set up looks like in the photo (lemons not visible). I reach into the bird with a knife and make a few incisions in the lemon so that the lemon will release all its juices. Slow cook the bird until a thermometer reads 180 degrees everywhere, especially in the thickest parts.

The meat cooks in its own juices and the lemon and rosemary permeate the meat. After the meat is fully cooked, I let it turn 30 minutes or so unheated for all the juices to equilibrate inside and out. You can catch the drippings for gravy if you wish. The meat cooks symmetrically and there is no soggy part as in pan roasting.

The recipe scales up well and we do our Thanksgiving turkey the same way but with stuffing instead of lemon.

chickelit said...

That's actually a turkey in the photo.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Oh my, that sounds great. Definitely going to try that one!

I admire your ingenuity in refurbishing the gas bbq to charcoal.

deborah said...

Lovely, Palladian.

rh, I suppose you've seen that one can now buy peeled, hard-boiled eggs. What is the world coming to?

Aaron said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Birches said...

@ Darcy

America's Test Kitchen does a Chicken fricassee that might not be as good as Julia's, but only takes about an hour. We love it.

http://myyearwithchris.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/chicken-fricassee/

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

A baby turkey?

Darcy said...

@Birches

I will try it!

Julia's recipe is worth the time, though. After we'd eaten, I told my son that I would like to skip a few steps (i.e., skipping making the little fresh herb bundles and the pearl onion braising) the next time and he said, "NO! Make it the same way. I'll help."

:)

Chennaul said...

one of my old French earthenware pots from Vallauris.

That thing is beautiful, (I've never seen anything like it)--hope you get reunited with it really soon.


Thanks for sharing this recipe.

Darcy said...

@Birches

I noticed your linked recipe calls for sour cream rather than Julia's heavy cream. I wonder what difference that makes. I'm going to try it both ways, since it's an easy sub. The only other real difference besides the chicken broth is the substitution of mushrooms for the carrots and onions.

I'm hungry now. Thanks!

Crimso said...

I guess I know what to do for supper this Sunday. I'd do this tonight, but too short notice, and tomorrow evening we go to see Yes. So Sunday it is.

And I'm picturing Chip Ahoy seething right about now. Hoping he returns fire.

Trooper York said...

Jeez.

Right out of the box Palladian gives us a recipe of how to prepare a cock.

Joe Schmoe said...

Birches, I don't think I've ever made a bad recipe from America's Test Kitchen. They make good stuff.

Basta! said...

"In exchange for a week-or-so use of a couch, I'm doing the cooking"

Well, your friend got a great deal

Karen of Texas said...

For some reason when Palladian talks food, and Chip Ahoy too, I am reminded of that scene in Kate & Leopold - I know, utter chick flick - where Leopold fixes Kate breakfast and waxes poetic about the meal, the perfect piece of toast...

And did my phone really let me spell spies "spys"?

Birches said...

@ Joe

America's Test Kitchen books are the only recipe books we have. They don't get anything wrong.

@ Darcy

The substitute might be because they want the tartness of the sour cream. I'm not sure.

test said...

Karen of Texas said...
For some reason when Palladian talks food, and Chip Ahoy too, I am reminded of that scene in Kate & Leopold - I know, utter chick flick -


Not just a chick flick. The mixing of romance and light sci-fi with social commentary was great, plus Jackman was excellent. An underknown gem [along with Office Space].