Poulet de Bresse

[Gary Marshall]

ahh, so it's creme fraiche not double cream?

thanks

gary

[PS]

Gary - there is a recipe for this on the internet somewhere that gives fresh cream as the ingredient, but I've double checked in my Georges Blanc book and it does say "creme fraiche", and when I cooked the dish it tasted not too far away from what we had in Vonnas.

[Bux]

I'm not sure about the equivalent creams in the US, the UK and France, but in the US, heavy cream can be boiled without curdling or separating. Milk cannot. I don't know at what point the percentage of butterfat will be enough to prevent it from curdling. Come to think of it, when you say splitting, you may mean separating not curdling. I've not seen cream separate from heating.

[Gary Marshall]

my fault for not being specific,

i was just checking as reducing a litre of cream is not something i'd do on a regular basis and obvioulsy different creams in (the uk single, double or fraiche) all react differently to heat ie reduce quickly, not at all, split (granted that may be milk!), so just checking i'd got the right stuff and knew what to expect!

thanks philip for the clarification,i made a simple saute with noilly prat, double cream and lemon juice with rice but i'll give the full georges blanc version a go soon!

cheers

gary

Edited August 9, 2004 by Gary Marshall (log)

[MobyP]

I'm not sure about the equivalent creams in the US, the UK and France, but in the US, heavy cream can be boiled without curdling or separating. Milk cannot.

I believe it works on a fat to liquid ratio. I was told that you could reduce UK double cream by about 50% before it will split (although it does get rather claggy). Perhaps the US heavy cream has a similar fat content?

[Carlsbad]

I've tried to resist (and have so far), but have to post this. I had a Bresse chicken en vessie (sp?) at Bocuse in 1989, that I still remember so fondly. Talk about a rich cream sauce. My wife has often said we can never return (and we haven't) because it couldn't be as good.

[MobyP]

Carlsbad - more description! How was it prepared? What was the texture? The garnish? The aromas, the flavours?

[Carlsbad]

They brought the chicken out on a serving cart- the pig's bladder was blown up like a balloon. They parked the cart next to our table, and then punctured the bladder, letting out an aroma I remember as that of just black truffles and chicken. The waiter removed the chicken, carved it very nicely and placed it on a plates with some stuffing I remember as having vegetables and forcemeat. The chicken had been poached in the bladder so there was no crisp skin, just luscious chicken meat and the stuffing, served with this incredibly rich cream sauce. It seems like there was more on the plate- some vegetables and maybe some rice, but the chicken is the thing I remember.

[Poppy Quince]

My sister, husband and I had lunch a few weeks ago at Les Fontaines, on rue Soufflot in Paris, an always reliable place for a simple meal. After sharing with me my favorite endive salad with bleu cheese, my sister ordered a poulet de Bresse roti. She was served what appeared to be a simply roasted but nearly entire bird along with a goodly hunk of potatoes Anna. Staring horrified at it, she bet she wouldn't be able to eat half. Twenty minutes later we were looking down at the stripped carcass, with sister swearing that it was the best chicken she'd ever eaten in her life and she simply hadn't been able to stop until she'd finished it all. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to have gotten a taste, but that's what I'm ordering next time.

[smorris291]

My wife and I shared the Poulet de Bresse at the restaurant at the Hostellerie de Levernois (outside of Beaune) a couple weeks ago. It was our last nice meal in France, and after seeing it on the menu at a few different places, we decided to go for it.

This poulet was simply prepared, just slathered in butter and roasted. When it arrived, it was so big we thought that there was no way we could finish the whole thing. One of the best parts about ordering this dish was watching the server completely dismantle the bird in front of us using just a small carving knife and a large spoon. We each were given some of the bird with a helping of, without a doubt, the best mashed potatoes I've ever had. After we'd devoured the first portion, the server cleared our plates, then returned with a smaller helping of potatoes and gave us the rest of the chicken. We were stuffed, but of course we finished the entire thing.

It was fantastic. Of course, the downside is that I'm not quite as excited to get the roasted chicken from Costco...

[bleudauvergne]

We made a comsomme de Poule de Bresse with a one year old hen. I used only a bouquet garni containing a bit of sage. The eCGI class "On Consomme" was strictly followed.

It would have been better alone without the truffle raviolis.

[cru]

The best is in Burgundy @ La Cote d'Or. The 3 star restaurant of the late, great Bernard Loiseau. Still the best after his passing. Pulled from a pot, carved tableside, aroma of truffles fill the air. First the white meat, an hour later the dark meat. Unbelieveable!

[bleudauvergne]

Today is Wednesday, the day I can get Poulet de Bresse from the producer. I think I'll pay a visit to him today to see what he's offering. All this talk about French cooking has got me in the mood for a nice poulet de B. And I'll try a new recipe tonight.

[Ptipois]

You may not find this easily if you live in Lyon, and they are not easy to find elsewhere either, but I've regularly found poulets de Challans to be superior to most poulets de Bresse. The quality of poulet de Bresse really depends on the producer: it may be sublime, or just chicken.

[chefzadi]

Poulet de Bresse site.

It's kind of campy, the visuals I mean.

[Ptipois]

Poulet de Bresse site.

It's kind of campy, the visuals I mean.

←

It's hilarious.

Another slow Flash website where you have time to fall asleep before you can click again.

Some web designer must have charged a fortune for this

There are interesting recipes, though.

[bleudauvergne]

Thanks for the link to those recipes!

Tonight I think I'll prepare the Poulet de Bresse Sous le Croute de Sel from that website. I've never prepared anything sous le croute de sel, so if anyone has any advice about how to do it or how this is supposed to come out, please let me know.

Hmmm

[FaustianBargain]

Thanks for the link to those recipes!

Tonight I think I'll prepare the Poulet de Bresse Sous le Croute de Sel from that website.  I've never prepared anything sous le croute de sel, so if anyone has any advice about how to do it or how this is supposed to come out, please let me know. 

Hmmm 

←

This is how I did it for Pigeonneau en Croute de Sel au Chou Rouge. I'll skip the chou rouge accompaniment recipe.

This was what I did for a salt crust for two squabs...tiny birds, those....

1kg flour(T45), 600g coarse sea salt

7 egg whites, 450ml water

also, chopped rosemary for the aroma.

First, I deboned the pigeonneau until it is like a jacket of sorts. Stuffed it with a farce. The carcass went in for the jus. The idea is to hermetically seal the bird to keep in the 'juice'. I am thinking it can also be done without deboning the bird. It is such a pain anyways..lovely, but painful. Also, the squab tastes much stronger than any chicken. I kept thinking that I need to stuff a bird with figs. All I could think of was FIGS. Weird, that..anyways..

For the farce:

300g fine sausage meat

100g fresh duck foie gras

50g chicken liver

50g sweated shallots in duck fat

2 chopped garlic

10g chopped truffle(heh)

7g salt

1g white ground pepper

5 juniper berries, finely chopped

pinch of mixed spice

dash of Madeira

Here is an egullet thread I started about Croute de Sel.

edited to add: Here is a recipe that I have always wanted to try, but never have..*

La Volaille demi-deuil(la Mere Fillioux of Lyon)

Choose a fine chicken, preferably from the Louhans district, plump and tender and weighing about 2 lb. Slip thin slices of truffle under the skin of the bird. Fold it in a fine cloth and tie it lightly round with string. Put it into a pot containing a broth made from shin of veal, with leeks and carrots. Boil it for 15 mts; then leave it for 20 more minutes in the bouillon and serve it with a pinch of coarse salt.

*"But the secret...the secret, they say, is to cook fifteen chickens at a time..at least" - Elizabeth David.

A chicken that weighs 2 lbs..:) How much does a Bresse chicken weigh anyways?

Edited March 17, 2005 by FaustianBargain (log)

[chefzadi]

You may not find this easily if you live in Lyon, and they are not easy to find elsewhere either, but I've regularly found poulets de Challans to be superior to most poulets de Bresse. The quality of poulet de Bresse really depends on the producer: it may be sublime, or just chicken.

←

The producers of Bresse poultry all follow the same AOC standards. The rules are quite precise and the birds are feeding off of the same terroir. The flavor differences are the result of natural farming and not a more homegenized/industrial style.

(Why does American free range chicken always taste the same?)

Leave it to the French to spend all this time and care knowing that the splendor of what makes Bresse poultry so great is that ultimately mother nature decides. When she is fickle we settle for poultry that is just plain good, well really good. But she tends to be kinder to Bresse poultry more often than she is with other birds, because she knows the farmers are trying to help. And when she kisses a bird with gold, it is sublime as ptipois described.

[docsconz]

(Why does American free range chicken always taste the same?)

←

They don't all taste the same. The difference is whether or not they are truly "free range". True free range chickens are indeed different. The problem, I believe is that in the US the definition of "free range" is pretty broad and there is still a lot of homogeneity in the feed, especially since the term has developed some cache wich in turn leadds to extra cash. For the most part what is called "free range" in the US is still essentially a masss market product. The way to get distinctive chicken in the US is to know one's producer and how they raise their birds. hether they compete with Poulet Bresse is another question and one I hope to answer for myself later this summer.

[bleudauvergne]

The bird received it's kiss of gold last night. Even if I might not have done it just right..

At the market, the producer also brought his daughter. It's the Lyon producers market on the square at Perrache station. This is an interesting market because it takes place in the middle of the week, at the end of the day. And people are only allowed to sell their own product here. There have been vendors at this market that I see on the Quai St. Antoine, so in that way I know they are direct producers. You can usually tell who's a local producer and who isn't. The producers tend to be less showy and only have what's in season, of course. But the products are the freshest.

The birds are tagged with a bracelet, a special metal thing that identifies them as part of the federation, a hand written number, PLUS the stickers and tags.. The guy offered me all his extra feet without me even asking this time. Wasn't that nice of him?

Poulet de Bresse sous la croute de sel

This is all you need for this dish:

1 Poulet de Bresse

Salt about 600 grams

flour about a 800-900 grams

pepper (I chose three kernels of poivre long)

2 bay leaves

2 sprigs fresh rosemary (which I clipped from a plant I have)

2-3 poultry livers. I had the liver from the bird I bought, and also a pintade liver that the vendor had for sale.

Heat the oven to 150 C or about 300F (?).

What you do is mix the salt and flour and some water to make a thick homogenous dough. You don't want it too gooey or soft. I made the mistake of a too gooey dough and it sagged down and began to get holes, so had to peel it off the bird and add flour to it. It's got to be really nice and thick.

This was too gooey and I ended up adding flour to it.

Put the rosemary, bay leaves, peppercorns, and livers inside the bird's cavity.

You then push the dough all down flat and layer it on the bird and seal it up in areas that look like they might break and around the edges. I used a pastry brush to poisten certain parts and pinched it and prodded it a bit. I also put on two layers to make sure there weren't any holes.

This is the bird with the good dough on it. It's not very pretty...

Then you put it in the oven. The recipe I used said to do it for 1.5 hours. This was where a mishap occured. While I was kneading the dough on the table, my husband went poking around and thought I'd left the oven on by accident. He fiddled with the knob and then turned it back when he realized I'd had it on for a reason. However with my new fangled German oven, the oven automatically sets at certain temperature depending on the type of air circulation you choose. SO, instead of 150, it was automatically reset to 220.

At about an hour, things started smelling quite delicious and I could swear it was done by the lovely aromas coming out of the kitchen. I was suprised, and checked and realized just then that it was on the high temp. I have rotied birds at this temp so I wasn't too concerned, but the croute was not as golden and uniform as it could have been. In fact it was slightly burned. There has got to be some way for a little air to escape otherwise the thing will explode, right? On the right side you see there was just a little place where some liquids bubbled up to the top. But I think that's normal. Is that normal?

Oh well. We cracked the croute off the bird and saw it was just fine. Very steamy and juicy!

Thank goodness I stuck my nose in the oven and checked it.

We know the French usually eat with silverware but last night we ate with our fingers. The meat was infused with a hint of rosemary, was soft, juicy and quite frankly, delicious. The juices were out of this world.

I dressed the salad with a vinaigrette of some of the cooking juices and a hint of common red wine vinegar, plus the fois, with a little white pepper ground on top.

The recipe was inspired by Joel Robuchon's recipe but I added the poivre long, an extra bay leaf, and instead of completely wrapping the chicken as he instructs, I sealed it into the pan. This idea came from a conversation with a lady on the bus on the way to the market from work. She said that to seal it in made it easier to open afterwards. I can see that since it was hard as a rock and took a bit of effort to pry off.

Anyway. Delicious and easy and I encourage anyone to try this. I think the fricasee with the fois gras sauce was the best so far but this comes a close second, and due to it's ease of preparation, I would actually rate it higher than the fricasee in terms of taste payoff and good use of the bird.

[therese]

Looks great, Lucy.

Is the glass of wine crucial to the success of the dish? I'll assume so.

[FaustianBargain]

The bird received it's kiss of gold last night. 

Looks lovely, bleudauvergne.

re bubbling liquid: no, that shouldnt happen. I think. my guess is that you are losing the juices/moisture. Maybe the bird got a little steamed inside. When I did it, I made a tight envelope so that the bird is completely covered with the salt crust. I am guessing your chicken is touching the bowl and the salt crust was more of a tight sheath draped over the bird instead of a tight envelope. Regardless, your results show that these things dont matter and are purely theoritical.

p.s. what is 'poivre long'?

[Ptipois]

p.s. what is 'poivre long'?

←

Long pepper or pippal, tippali (?) in tamil.

[FaustianBargain]

p.s. what is 'poivre long'?

←

Long pepper or pippal, tippali (?) in tamil.

←

wow! I didnt know long pepper is kanda thippili. There is this killer thippili broth/rasam and also used in all sorts of medicinal food prep like digestion aids.