[Sca-cooks] Le Menagier's chicken in orange sauce

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> Also sprach <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>:
> >  > >     Take the oranges and slice them in white verjuice and white wine,
> >>  >     and put them to boil, and put in ginger; and put your poultry to
> >>  >     cook in this.
> >>
> >>  I don't have PD or Le Menagier in front of me, but from an
> >>  organizational standpoint it would seem to make sense. And this looks
> >>  like a pretty simple recipe: basically you're reheating roast poultry
> >>  (probably quartered) in a sourish sauce. Note that the recipe is for
> >>  pouchins (spring chickens) or partridges or pigeons, all smaller than
> >>  your typical modern roast chicken.
> >
> >Hm, I was thinking you were supposed to cook the poultry in the wine,
> >rather than roasting it first and re-heating it. Master A., what makes you
> >think it would be a reheating dish?
>
> Only the fact that it is (allegedly) in a section of recipes for
> sauces for roast poultry, and the fact that I seem to recall roast
> birds are moderately warm and dry foods (medically speaking), and a
> quick bath in a hot sour sauce would adjust the humoral balance to
> something more beneficial to the diner and have them steaming on the
> table. Thinking in terms of removing them from the spit, and the
> tendency of smallish birds to cool off somewhat by the time they get
> to the table.

Birds are usually warm and moist in the second degree (except for cranes,
for instance, which are warm and *dry* in the second degree). Roasting
will dry them out to some extent. White wine is warm and dry in the second
degree, verjuice I don't remember but I'm pretty sure it's still dry.
Oranges, no idea. My books are at home today, and my notes are incomplete.
 >
> I didn't really mean it in the sense of reheating leftovers or
> anything; more a two-part cooking process (think of this as a linear
> inversion of the parboiled, larded, and then roast meats). Sure, you
> could simply cook the birds in the sauce, but that would provide less
> of a medical imperative to do so... so you could either do it because
> it's necessary, or do it because... it's not. While not a perfect
> argument, doesn't it make some sense?
>
> Yes, I _am_ speculating. ;-)
>
> A.

Doesn't the Boke of Kervynge (or maybe it's the Boke of Nurture) talk
about reheating things after you've carved them up but before you serve
them, because they've gotten cold?

Margaret