Whisk Wednesdays—Coquelets sur Canapés (Roast Squab Chickens with Chicken Liver Canapés and Mushrooms)

Squab, a euphemism for a 4-week old, tender nestling pigeon is on the menu this week. I've only fed pigeons, never eaten one so it was a new adventure for me! Along with the squab, I prepared a partridge and a regular chicken for comparison.

The birds were sprinkled with salt, shallots and tarragon, then rubbed all over with butter. Finally strips of bacon (that had been simmered in water for 10 minutes to remove some of its smokiness) were placed on top to add flavor. The poultry were roasted in a 400°F oven until the juices ran clear (about 30-40 minutes).

The mushrooms, canapé and sauce make this roast poultry so much more delectable! The mushrooms are easily sautéed in butter and oil and then set aside. For the canapé, I chopped up some fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes and made a bruschetta using the recipe's ingredients instead of the requested chicken-liver version. Frying the bread slices in clarified butter added extra richness. To deglaze the roasting pan, I used the pan juices, homemade chicken stock, a dash of leftover veal stock and a splash of port and let this mixture simmer until reduced by half. Finished with butter, this sauce was perfect ladled over the meat.

Recipe

Serves 6 (I halved the recipe.)

Partridge, Squab, Chicken

For the Mushrooms:
¾ pound fresh mushrooms
½ tablespoon butter
½ tablespoon oil
½ tablespoons shallots, minced
¼ clove garlic, mashed

For the Canapés:
3 slices homemade-type white bread
¼ cup clarified butter
3 poultry or game livers
1½ tablespoons bacon fat
1/8 teaspoon salt
Big pinch of pepper
½ tablespoon Madeira, port or cognac

For the Squab:
3 10- to 12-ounce, ready-to-cook squab chickens
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon shallots, minced
¼ teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons butter
3 strips of bacon simmered in water for 10 minutes, rinsed and dried
1½ tablespoon butter, melted with ½ tablespoon good cooking oil
¾ teaspoon salt

For the Sauce:
½ tablespoon shallots, minced
¾ cup brown chicken stock or brown stock
1/8 cup Madeira or port
½ to 1 tablespoon butter, softened

For Reheating the Mushrooms:
½ tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
Pinch of pepper

For Final Assembly:
Handful of parsley (or sage) for garnish
You can find the recipe for Coquelets sur Canapés (Roast Squab Chickens with Chicken Liver Canapés and Mushrooms) in the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Statue just outside the entrance to Central Park in NYC
Tasting Notes
The squab had a meatiness similar to dark chicken meat, but it wasn't gamey as I had expected. It was moist and had a good chew to it. Getting all the meat off the bones of the squab was more work for each bite, but worth it. Surprisingly, the taste of the partridge was not discernible from the chicken. Overall, though, I'd rather eat chicken and feed pigeons!

"Toward a better world I contribute my modest smidgin;
I eat the squab, lest it become a pigeon."
— Ogden Nash

Links
• Squab.com
• The Julie/Julia Project

Next Class
• Biscuit de Savoie (Sponge Cake) on pages 33-34

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,497.55 + $19.76 = $1,517.31
($3.29 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 31 tablespoons

91% complete Basic Cuisine

. . . . . . . . . .

::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.

If you like this post, share it!



If you like this blog, you can subscribe and get updates automatically.

Click here to learn about subscribing.

Click here to subscribe.