David Radwine, executive chef at the Midland Hotel, serves this stuffed poussin with a relish made with whole cranberries and steamed balls of acorn squash. The Tribune test kitchen has adapted the recipe for the home cook.
DAVID RADWINE`S ROAST POUSSIN WITH APPLE AND SAUSAGE STUFFING
Four servings
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 1/4 hours
3/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 apple, cored, chopped
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 1/2 cups toasted, diced bread croutons
3/4 pound cooked pork sausage, diced
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup chicken stock or broth
4 poussin (baby chicken), about 1 1/4 pound each (or Cornish hen)
Giblets from poussin, chopped
Salt, pepper to taste
1 cup orange juice
1 can (13 3/4 ounces) beef broth
2 tablespoons flour dissolved in 1/4 cup water
Garnish:
Cooked cranberries, recipe follows
Steamed acorn squash balls, recipe follows
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Saute onion, celery and apple in butter in large skillet until crisp-tender. Transfer to large bowl. Add croutons, cooked sausage, apricots, parsley, chicken stock and giblets. Toss to mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.
2. Stuff mixture into breast cavitites of poussin. Truss cavity opening with string. Tuck wings underneath. Put stuffed poussin into roasting pan. Brush with orange juice and season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Bake until meat thermometer inserted in thigh registers 150 to 160 degrees, 60 to 70 minutes. Remove poussin from pan to serving platter; keep warm.
4. For sauce, put roasting pan over medium heat. Stir in beef broth. Heat to boil while scraping browned bits up off bottom of roasting pan. Whisk in flour mixture. Cook and stir until smooth and thickened. Taste and adjust seasonings. Strain through fine sieve.
5. Serve poussin with sauce. If desired, garnish with cooked cranberries and steamed acorn squash balls.
Cooked cranberries: Dissolve 1/4 cup sugar in 1/2 cup water in nonaluminum saucepan over medium heat. Stir in 1 cup cranberries. Cook over low heat just until cranberries are tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat, cool. Remove cranberries from syrup with slotted spoon before serving.
Steamed acorn squash balls: Cut acorn squash in half. Scoop out and discard seeds. Using a melon baller, scoop squash into balls. Steam squash balls on a steamer rack over boiling water, covered, until tender, about 10 minutes. Serve warm.
This recipe for guinea hen is from the newsletter of Bruss Co., 3548 N. Kostner Ave., a wholesale food distributor to major restaurants.
GUINEA HEN WITH ORANGE AND POMEGRANATE
Four servings
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 5 hours
2 guinea hens, 2 to 2 1/2 pounds each
2 carrots, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 tomato, halved
3 quarts water
1 cup dry red wine
1 garlic clove, crushed
Bouquet garni (2 bay leaves, 2 sprigs parsley, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 5 black peppercorns tied together in double thickness cheesecloth)
4 tablespoons Grand Marnier liqueur
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup pomegranate juice (if fresh, from 3 medium pomegranates, blended and strained) or cranberry juice
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon grated orange rind
Salt, pepper to taste
Julienned orange rind, for garnish
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Rinse guinea hens. Cut along breast bones and remove the two breast halves from the bone, leaving skin attached. Remove legs without separating drumsticks from thighs. Cover breasts and legs and refrigerate.
2. With a cleaver, chop the carcasses and necks; place in a shallow roasting pan with carrots, onion and tomato. Bake in upper third of oven, turning once or twice, until well browned, 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Put bones into a stockpot; add 3 quarts cold water. Pour wine into roasting pan. Heat to boil and scrape up bits from bottom of pan; add to stockpot with garlic and bouquet garni. Simmer, skimming off surface scum, for 4 hours. Strain through cheesecloth. There will be about 1 quart. (Recipe can be made ahead to this point.)
4. Put stock into saucepan. Add 3 tablespoons of the Grand Marnier. Boil gently until reduced to 1 cup.
5. Heat oven to 250 degrees. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the leg quarters, skin side down, and saute until golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Turn and cook 3 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer to a platter. Put in oven.
6. Add remaining butter to skillet. Add breasts, skin side down. Saute until golden, 2 minutes. Turn and cook, until slightly pink inside, about 2 more minutes. Add to the platter, cover and keep warm.
7. To the skillet, add the 1 cup reduced stock and pomegranate juice. Boil until reduced to 1 cup. Add the cream and boil until reduced to 1 cup. Remove from the heat; stir in 1/4 teaspoon orange rind and remaining 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Cut breast halves into thin slices and fan onto dinner plates. Add a leg quarter to each plate and 1/4 cup sauce per person. Garnish with julienned orange rind.
Tony Mantuano, executive chef at Spiaggia, serves this quail with grilled polenta, Italian sausage and Italian broccoli. For the restaurant, Mantuano marinates the quail for 3 days for extra flavor. When we tested the recipe, we marinated the birds only 24 hours and the results were fine.
TONY MANTUANO`S GRILLED QUAIL
Four servings
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Marinating time: 1 to 3 days
Cooking time: 10 to 12 minutes
4 quail
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup loosely packed flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon juniper berries, crushed
Grilled polenta, recipe follows
1. Rinse quail; pat dry. Put garlic, parsley, oil and juniper berries into shallow glass dish. Add quail; turn to coat well with marinade. Refrigerate, covered, turning quail occasionally for at least 24 hours or up to 3 days.
2. Bring quail to room temperature. Remove quail from marinade, scraping off excess.
3. Prepare a charcoal grill or preheat broiler.
4. Grill or broil quail, 6 inches from heat source, turning often, until breast meat is still slightly pink, 8 to 12 minutes. Serve with grilled polenta and Italian sausage.
Chicken broth or stock, instead of water, helps polenta keep its shape in this recipe from Spiaggia`s executive chef Tony Mantuano.
TONY MANTUANO`S GRILLED POLENTA
Four servings
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Chilling time: 3 to 4 hours
2 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth
1 cup fine yellow cornmeal, such as stone-ground
Salt, white pepper, to taste
Vegetable oil
1. Heat chicken broth in saucepan to simmer. Slowly whisk in cornmeal, salt and pepper. Reduce heat. Simmer, stirring constantly, until mixture is very thick and smooth, about 20 minutes.
2. While mixture is still warm, pour onto buttered baking sheet into a 3/4-inch layer. Smooth with rubber spatula. Cool in refrigerator until firm, 3 to 4 hours.
3. Heat grill. Use cookie cutter to cut polenta into desired shapes. Brush grill with oil. Dip one side of polenta in oil and put that side down onto grill. Grill until heated through and slightly crisp on both sides, about 3 minutes.
This squab recipe is adapted from ”Jacques Pepin`s: The Art of Cooking” (Knopf, $35). Squabs, or baby pigeons, are cooked directly on top of a wire rack in the oven and roasted at a high temperature, with a pan placed underneath to catch the fat. This, way the bird browns all around. The addition of honey mixed with water, the same technique used for Peking duck, sweetens the skin and gives it a beautiful dark brown caramel color. Ask your butcher to bone the squab, reserving the bones and organs for the stock.
SQUAB DANNY K.
Six servings
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: About 1 1/2 hours
6 squabs, 1 pound each
Fat from squab or 3 tablespoons butter
Squab bones, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup coarsely chopped carrots
1/2 cup coarsely chopped onions
5 cups water
1 cup red wine
Tomato seeds and skin trimmings (pulp reserved for other use)
Giblet sauce:
1 tablespoon butter
1/3 cup chopped onions
Reserved gizzards, hearts and livers, chopped
2 to 4 mushrooms, cut into 1/4-inch dice ( 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon potato starch dissolved in 1 tablespoon red wine (cornstarch can be substituted)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Garnish:
1 teaspoon honey mixed with 1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 bunch watercress
1 teaspoon garlic chives or regular chives, chopped
1. Have butcher bone the squabs. Reserve bones, gizzards and fat. Refrigerate squabs.
2. Melt squab fat or butter in a large roasting pan. Add squab bones. Place over medium to high heat and brown on all sides, about 15 minutes. Add carrots and onions to bones; cook 5 minutes. Add 5 cups water, the wine and tomato seeds and skin. Heat to boil; cook 30 minutes. Strain, pressing to extract juices. Discard solids. Let liquid rest about 5 minutes and remove as much fat as possible. You should have about 2 cups stock remaining. Reduce by boiling down to 1 1/2 cups.
3. For the sauce, heat 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet. Saute onions about 1 1/2 minutes, then add the gizzards and hearts; saute 1 more minute. Add mushrooms, saute about 1 minute. Add livers; saute another minute over very high heat. Add dissolved potato starch, 1 1/2 cups reduced stock, salt and pepper. Set aside.
4. Secure the skin of the squab`s neck with a toothpick so it covers the opening of the neck. Submerge each bird in boiling water for 5 to 10 seconds. The skin will get tight and the squab, although smaller, will take on its original shape. Brush squabs on all sides with the honey-water mixture.
5. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Sprinkle squabs with salt and place on a rack in the center of the oven with a large roasting pan beneath to catch the fat. Roast until nicely browned all around, about 15 minutes. Remove to a plate and keep warm. Pour out as much of the fat as possible and strain the remaining juice into the sauce.
6. Arrange squab on a large platter or individual plates, partially sliced. The squab will be solid with meat and slightly pink. Pour the sauce around, sprinkle with chives, garnish with watercress and serve with hollowed tomato cups, filled with peas.
Chef Peter McGinley at the Nikko Hotel serves the following pheasant breast and confit leg with a red zinfandel sauce, wild rice mushroom cakes, smoked Granny Smith apples and a cranberry relish. The Tribune test kitchen has made adaptations to the recipe for the home cook.
CHEF PETER MCGINLEY`S PHEASANT BREAST WITH CONFIT LEG
Two servings
Preparation time: 1 hour
Marinating time: Overnight
Cooking time: 1 hour
1 pheasant, about 3 pounds
Garlic salt
Crushed black peppercorns
Rosemary
Bay leaf
Peanut oil
Red zinfandel sauce:
1 1/2 tablespoons minced shallots
1 cup minced mushroom stems
2 cups red zinfandel wine
1 bay leaf
1 cup demi-glace, see note
Salt, white pepper to taste
To serve:
2 smoked apples, recipe follows
Cranberry relish, recipe follows
Wild rice cakes, recipe follows
1. Rinse pheasant in cold water and pat dry. Bone pheasant, removing thigh and leg as one unit and the breast. Skin breast and refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Remove thigh bone, being careful not to cut the skin around the leg and thigh. Use boning knife to separate thigh meat from skin. Use thumb to push bottom of leg joint up while pulling down meat on leg. This should allow skin from the thigh to wrap around leg and thigh meat. Tie with string on bottom. You should have a nice ball of meat wrapped by skin with leg bone sticking out at the top.
3. Rub legs with garlic salt, crushed peppercorns, rosemary and bay leaf. Cover and let marinate in refrigerator overnight.
4. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Heat peanut oil in saucepan to 300 degrees. Place legs in oil. Cover with foil and bake in oven until meat is very soft, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Remove from oven.
5. To make sauce, put shallots, mushrooms, wine and bay leaf into nonaluminum saucepan. Boil gently until reduced by two-thirds. Add demi-glace. Boil until reduced again by one-fourth or until sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.
6. Turn oven up to 350 degrees. Saute breasts in butter, turning once, until medium-rare, about 4 minutes. Put in oven for 3 to 5 minutes.
7. Remove legs from oil. Reheat oil to 360 degrees. Place legs in oil and cook until skin is crisp, about 3 minutes. Remove legs, and cut a small slice from bottom of each leg so that they can stand up on their own.
8. Thinly slice breast meat and fan out on serving plate. Put leg on plate. Drizzle sauce around meat. Garnish with smoked apple, cranberry relish and wild rice cakes.
Note: If you don`t have a demi-glace for the sauce, dissolve 2 teaspoons arrowroot or 1 tablespoon cornstarch in 1 cup beef broth and heat until thickened. Use in place of demi-glace.
WILD RICE MUSHROOM CAKES
Four servings
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Chilling time: 1 hour
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 small onion
1/2 cup water
1 cup wild rice
3 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup diced fresh wild mushrooms
Salt, pepper to taste
2 large eggs
Vegetable oil or clarified butter
1. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in saucepan. Saute onions until they begin to caramelize on edges. Add 1/2 cup water. This is called sweating the onions. Cook 3 minutes. Add rice; cook and stir for 5 minutes. Add chicken stock, increase heat and simmer, covered, until rice is tender, about 30 minutes. Drain rice and put into large bowl. Chill thoroughly, about 1 hour.
2. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter in another saucepan. Saute mushrooms over high heat for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and chill.
3. When rice and mushrooms are cold, mix them together and add eggs.
4. Heat a seasoned or nonstick skillet. Add a thin layer of oil or clarified butter. Spoon rice mixture, into pan, forming a small cake about 3 inches in diameter. Flatten rice cakes. Cook until golden on both sides (turn gently with a spatula as cakes are fragile). Keep warm on serving platter.
SMOKED GRANNY SMITH APPLES
Two servings
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Smoking time: 30 to 35 minutes
2 Granny Smith apples
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup dried cherry wood
1. Rub apples with oil and place on top rack of smoker. Set smoker at 170 degrees. Smoke apples for 30 to 35 minutes. Remove apples and wrap in plastic while apples are still warm. This will help smoke flavor to penetrate into apples. Set apples in refrigerator until ready to use.
2. To reheat apples, cut them in half and remove cores. Roast at 350 degrees until apples are hot. To serve, prop apple on plate at slight angle and spoon relish on top so relish falls out onto plate.
Note: To smoke apples in a wok, put apples on a rack set in a pie plate. Line inside of wok and its lid with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Put about 1 cup finely chopped wood, or wood shavings, such as hickory, or fruit woods into bottom of wok. Place a rack in wok and set the pie plate with the apples on the rack. Cover with lid. Wrap a piece of heavy-duty foil around wok to completely seal lid to bottom. Set wok over medium heat. Heat until you start to smell the wood smoking, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to very low and smoke apples about 30 minutes.
CRANBERRY RELISH
Four to six servings
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Chilling time: Several hours
12 ounces fresh cranberries
1 cup golden raisins
2 cups fresh orange juice
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup champagne vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 large onion, halved, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1. Put all ingredients except onion and butter into a large nonaluminum saucepan. Heat to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Cook, uncovered, until cranberries are tender, about 3 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, saute onions in butter until they begin to caramelize on edges. Add 1/2 cup water. Cook 3 more minutes. Add onions to cranberries.
3. Spread mixture out onto baking sheet (this helps mixture thicken slightly while cooling). Let cool. Refrigerate until ready to use. Reheat before serving.
STORES CARRYING FANCY FOWLS The following stores regularly carry some of the fancier fowls in town. Check first for availability. Most of the stores will special order items.
– Czimer`s Wild Game Market, 159th St.(4 1/2 miles west of Orland Park), Lockport, 460-2210. Guinea hen, partridge, pheasant, quail, squab.
– Elegance in Meats, 3135 Dundee Rd., Northbrook, 480-3688. Guinea hen, pheasant, quail, squab.
– Georgia Farms, 2120 Central St., Evanston, 864-4887. Free-range chicken, quail.
– Foodworks, 1002 W. Diversey Ave., 348-7801; 1527 W. Morse Ave., 465-6200; and 935 W. Armitage Ave., 935-6800. Free-range chicken.
– Harrison Poultry, 1220 Waukegan Rd., Glenview, 724-0132. Pheasant, quail, squab.
– John`s Live Poultry and Egg Market, 5955 W. Fullerton Ave., 622-2813. Free-range chicken, guinea hen, partridge, pheasant, poussin, quail, squab. All available live, in season.
– Pick Fisheries, 702 W. Fulton St., 226-4700. Organic free-range chicken.
– Schaul`s Poultry & Meat Co., 7221 N. Harlem Ave., Niles, 647-9304. Guinea hen, pheasant, quail, squab.
– Wild Game Inc., 2315 W. Huron St., 278-1661. Free-range chicken with 24-hour notice, grouse, guinea hen, partridge, pheasant, poussin, quail, squab.
