GILDED DISHES
Subtleties for a feast day, or for a prince's banquet on three meat days of the week such as Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
178. [Gilded chickens with quenelles.]
After
the chicken is killed, break a bit of skin on the head, take a feather
tube, blow in until it is very full of air, scald it, slit it along the
belly, skin it, and put the carcass aside.
For
the stuffing and the quenelles have some raw pork meat (it doesn't
matter what kind) chopped with pork fat, white [chicken meat], eggs,
good Fine Powder, pine nut paste and currants. Stuff the chicken skins
with it (but do not fill them so much that they burst), restitch them,
and boil them in a pan on the fire (but do not let them cook for very
long). When the quenelles are well made, put them to cook with the
chickens, and remove them when they are hardened. Spit the chickens on
slender spits. Have the spits for the quenelles slenderer by half or
more than those for the chickens.
Afterwards,
you need to have some batter beaten from eggs until it can stand up in
the pan. When the chickens and quenelles are nearly cooked, remove them
and put them over your batter. Take some batter with a clean spoon,
stirring always, put it on top of your chickens and quenelles, [and put
them over the fire] until they are glazed. Do them 2 or 3 times until
they are well covered. Take some gold or silver leaf and wrap them
(first sprinkle them with a little egg white so that the leaf adheres
better).
179. Helmeted cocks.
Roast
pigs, and poultry such as cocks and old hens. When the pig is roasted
on one hand, and the chicken on the other, stuff the chicken (without
skinning it, if you wish), and [glaze] it with beaten egg batter. When
it is glazed, set it riding on the pig with a helm of glued paper, and
with a lance fixed at the breast of the chicken. Cover them with gold
or silver leaf for the lords, or with white, red or green tin leaf [for
the others].
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