While the rice is cooking, prepare the following sauce: Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and stir in 1 ½ tablespoons flour. Stir in gradually 1 ½ cups chicken broth and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce is smooth and thick. Correct the seasoning, add a little nutmeg, and cook gently for 10 minutes longer. Mix 1 egg yolk with ¼ cup sweet cream and a little of the hot sauce and stir into the sauce. Add a few drops of lemon juice and cook for 2 or 3 minutes. but do not boil.
Make a bed of the rice on a serving platter, carve the fowl, and arrange it on the rice. Slice the carrots and arrange them around the bird. Pour half the sauce over the fowl and rice, and serve the remaining sauce separately. Leftover boiled fowl can be used for salad, croquettes. or hash, or served cold with mayonnaise.
Paulet Poché (Poached Chicken)
In a kettle combine 2 quarts water, a few chicken bones, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 carrots, 2 onions, 2 leeks, and a fagot made by tying together 2 stalks of celery,4 sprigs of parsley, half a bay leaf, and 1 spray of thyme, and simmer for 1 hour. Clean and singe a young 2 ½- to 3-pound chicken and truss the wings and legs close to the body. Put it in the broth and simmer for 30 to 35 minutes, or until done. To test, pierce the second joint with a kitchen fork or needle, and if no pink juice follows as the fork is withdrawn, the chicken is done. Keep it in the broth until ready to serve. Serve with rice prepared as for boiled fowl and either sauce suprême or allemande.
Sauce Suprêpre
Simmer 2 cups Chicken stock with 3 mushrooms, sliced, until the stock is reduced to one-third its original quantity.Stir in 1 cup chicken velouté (see below), bring to a boil, and cook until the sauce is reduced to about 1 cup. Stir in gradually I cup heavy cream, correct the seasoning with salt and a little cayenne. ant) strain through a fine sieve.
Chicken Velouté
Melt 1/3 cup butter, stir in 1/3 cup Hour, and cook for a few minutes. Stir in gradually 3 cups chicken stock, ½ teaspoon salt, and a little pepper, and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is reduced to about 2 ½ cups and is very thick.
Sauce Allemande
Mix 2 egg yolks with a little cream and stir into 2 cups hot sauce suprême. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce almost reaches a boil, but do not let it boil. Finish with 2 tablespoons heavy cream.
Faisan Poché au Céleri(Poached Pheasant with Celery)
Clean a pheasant and put 2 or 3 stalks of celery into the cavity. Put the bird in a kettle with broth to cover, add 2 stalks of celery, and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the bird is tender. Serve with braised celery hearts (see Feb. 1952) or purée of celery and wild rice and sauce Smitane (see below).
Sauce Smitane
Saute 2 small onions, finely minced, in 1 ½ tablespoons butter until they are soft but not brown. Moisten them with ½ cup dry white wine, stir well, and let the liquid reduce to almost nothing, stirring occasionally. Four in 1 generous cup scalded heavy sour cream, stirring constantly, and continue to stir until the mixture is thoroughly blended. Simmer very gently for 5 minutes. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve or cloth and season it with salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
Poached fish is preferred by many people, and poaching is a particularly good way to cook a whole fish or a piece of large fish weighing several pounds or even fish steaks and is a good way to cook shellfish. It is best to wrap the fish in cheesecloth to keep it from breaking apart, and if a large whole fish is being cooked, a saumonnier—fish kettle—is almost essential. This is a long narrow pan with a rack on which the fish rests, with handles at the ends by which the rack and fish can be easily lifted from the hot cooking liquid. If the fish is large and is to be served on the cold buffet, it is laid on a thin wooden board and tied to the board lightly with strips of cheesecloth to keep it straight and flat.
There are three different kinds of court-bouillon—stock—that are used for poaching fish. One includes milk and lemon juice to keep such fish as halibut and cod white during cooking; another uses vinegar and spices to give a spicy taste to the fish; and the third includes wine for the flavor it gives to delicate fish and shellfish. In France les érrevisses —crayfish—and les moules —mussels—are usually cooked in a stock with white wine.
Poached Haddock or Codfish
If the fish is cut into steaks or slices, poach them in court-bouillon ( see below) with milk and lemon slices for 10 to 15 minutes. The fish is done when the meat detaches easily from the bone. Remove the fish by lifting the slices from the kettle with a broad spatula. Serve with any desired fish sauce or with melted butter.
Court-Bouillon au Blanc (Milk Stock for Fish)
In a saucepan combine 2 quarts water, ½ cup milk, I tablespoon salt, and 3 slices of lemon. Pour the stock over the fish and bring to a boil. Lower the flame and simmer gently until the fish is done.
Poached Salmon, Halibut, Turbot, or Siriped Bass
Poach a fish weighing 5 to 6 pounds in court-bouillon with vinegar (see below) for 40 to 50 minutes. For larger fish allow 10 to 12 minutes per pound longer. The fish is done when a large kitchen needle easily detaches the meat from the backbone. If no fish kettle is available, a long fish can be cut in half and the two pieces put side by side in a saucepan. The cooking time should then be shortened.
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