On the finest china in town sit the fanciest birds around. Poussin, guinea hen, pheasant, quail and free-range chicken-the filets mignon of poultry have arrived with style.
When broiled chicken is too humble, today`s chefs flock to selections such as pheasant in zinfandel, grilled quail with polenta or apple-walnut stuffed poussin (poo SAHN, French for baby chicken). Some of the birds are so new to Chicago`s restaurant menus that the names haven`t caught up with the entrees.
”We serve poussin, but we don`t call it that,” says David Radwine, executive chef at the The Exchange restaurant in the Midland Hotel, 172 W. Adams St. ”We settled on `petit, free-range chicken.` We thought it would be easier on the customers and the waiters. No one even knows how to pronounce poussin.”
Guinea hen becomes faraona at Spiaggia. ”If we had put guinea hen on the menu, it never would have sold,” says executive chef Tony Mantuano. ”Faraona sounds great. And we explain that it is an Italian game bird-guinea hen.”
Many of the restaurants team the new poultry with another bird or meat.
”We always sold quail,” Mantuano says. ”But when we served it with Italian sausage it started to sell better.”
And salesmanship is part of the game. ”I go out and talk to the customers at the tables,” says Peter McGinley, chef at Les Celebrities in the Nikko Hotel, 320 N. Dearborn St. ”People aren`t that crazy at first about the thought of squab. And at first the pheasant didn`t go well. It took almost two months for it to sell well.”
Despite similar initial resistance at The Exchange, game has flown up from an occasional special to become a regular menu item, and sales have almost doubled in the last four months. Spiaggia, which used to sell about 48 quail a week, now needs 96 quail to meet the weekly demand. As soon as the 6- month-old Les Celebrities put pheasant on the menu, the game bird quickly commanded about 20 percent of lunch and dinner sales. It now outsells filet mignon.
Foods that first show up in restaurants, we know, often eventually trickle into home kitchens. The day may not be far away when home cooks will reach for these exotic birds in the local supermarket meatcase.
Why is there a burst of interest in the more unusual birds? ”People want to experiment,” says Robert Shipley, general manager of Squab Producers of California, a co-op of farmers who raise squab, partridge, pheasant, poussin, guinea hen and quail. ”There is a trend toward eating more poultry in general, including the more exotic birds.”
We`re not likely, however, to find a pheasant in every pot soon. ”The birds are expensive; so the interest will stay small,” Shipley says. But small is a relative term.
”I got a call one day from the Fairmont Hotel (200 N. Columbus Dr.),”
says Kaye Zubow, an owner of Wild Game Inc., 2315 W. Huron St. which sells exotic meats and poultry to restaurants and consumers. ”Executive chef John Coletta wanted 1,600 pheasant breasts. In four days.”
Zubow sighs at the memory of the ordeal. ”First I had to get in touch with the chef. He wants the pheasant breasts all one size, 8 to 10 ounces. Plus, he wants an unusual cut-a bone-in breast, split down the middle. It`s hard to cut a breast with the bone in and get both halves to come out even. I told the chef he couldn`t be picky-he`d get what I got.”
Once she had the order, Zubow had to find a farm that had 1,600 pheasants to sell, hope the farmer was near a phone, and plead with the farmer to handle the assignment-immediately.
”I finally found one guy in South Dakota. He stayed up all night with his family killing the birds then cutting them with scissors, trying to get those breast halves right down the middle.”
When the deed was done, the pheasant breasts were flown to Chicago by the next day. ”Between the shipping and what the farmer charged, those pheasant breasts cost the Fairmont $19 a pound,” says Zubow. ”And I didn`t make a penny. I was too embarrassed by the price.”
Some poultry, such as pheasant, is familiar to most people and upscale restaurants. But other types are new to the average diner. Here`s a brief guide to those unfamiliar birds:
POUSSIN
The name may sound foreign and exotic, but poussin is simply a baby chicken, the very same Cornish Plymouth Rock cross variety sold as a fryer in supermarkets. The difference is the upbringing, age and sex.
”We use only roosters,” says Shipley, whose California co-op is one of the largest producers of poussin in the country. ”They grow faster and more consistently.”
The baby chicks are raised in a 24-inch tall, environmentally controlled barn with plentiful water and high protein grains, Shipley says. ”We create a pleasant environment, but not a free-range situation. They are penned, but not in cages. They are not overcrowded.”
Then-and this is the key-the birds are killed young, at three weeks and two days old. A fryer grows to about 6 to 7 weeks old. ”In any animal product, the younger the animal, the more tender the meat,” Shipley says.
Poussin has a milder flavor, more tender texture, and about 11 percent fat; a regular fryer has 15 percent fat, Shipley says.
A 16- to 18-ounce poussin with bones sells for $3.98; a partially boned, 12-ounce poussin is $4.45.
FREE-RANGE CHICKEN
”Why they charge more for these birds, I don`t know,” says Rick Czimer, one of the owners of Czimer`s Wild Game Market, a Lockport store that specializes in unusual meats and poultry. ”They`re just a chicken turned out in the barnyard. They eat bugs.”
However, those who love these old-fashioned raised chickens say the flavor is superior. And they accept the higher price demanded because of the less efficient method of producing chicken.
”A free-range chicken lives outside and pecks for its own food,” Zubow says. It lays eggs less often and more sporatically. And because there is no control on eating habits, the bird eats and gains at its own rate.
”You can`t order honest-to-goodness free-range chicken from a farmer and get consistently exact sizes,” Zubow says. When she gets an order from a chef for free-range chicken, Zubow first phones farmers, typically Amish farmers in Indiana. ”The farmer goes out, catches the chicken. Then it has to be killed, feathered and cooled down before it`s sent here,” she says. The size of the dressed chicken may not match the order from the chef. ”Then the chef gets mad and sends the chicken back.”
”But,” Zubow concludes, ”free-range chickens are wonderful if you take them for what they are.”
David Farrington, president of Pine Ridge Farms, Subiaco, Ark., takes free-range chickens one step further, feeding them only organic food and doing all processing by hand. ”The organic feed makes the biggest taste difference,” says Farrington, whose poultry will be available for the first time in Chicago to restaurants through two wholesalers: R.S. Anderson Co., 6851 Irving Park Rd., and Pick Fisheries, 702 W. Fulton St., which also sells the birds to shoppers at $1.65 a pound.
One of Farrington`s fans is executive chef Randall Pentecost at the Waterford Hotel, Oklahoma City: ”These organically raised birds have a much better flavor and are really low in fat. They are excellent to poach or fry.” Pentecost has so much confidence in the product that he is using 250 of the birds at a special chef`s promotional dinner March 22 at the Palm Beach Polo Club, Palm Beach, Fla. The dish is right off his menu in Oklahoma City:
hickory grilled free-range, organically fed chicken, served on a nest of red, yellow and green sweet peppers.
Free-range chickens sell for about $1.80 a pound.
QUAIL
”There`s no question that quail is the most easily accepted game bird,” Zukow says. ”We sell up to 160 dozen a week.” Restaurants pay about $2.50 for a quail, and usually team it with another bird or piece of meat for a special, cost-effective entree.
Farm-raised quail lack the intense flavor of wild birds, says Mantuano. So when he features the birds at Spiaggia, he first marinates the quail for three to four days with olive oil, whole garlic, parsley and juniper berries. The quail then is char-broiled and served with star-shaped, grilled polenta, Italian broccoli and Italian sausage.
Two bobwhite quail, about 5 to 6 ounces each, sell for $5.95. Pharaoh quail, which are easier to raise, are about 4 to 5 ounces each and are sold in a package of six for $8.95.
PHEASANT
”King of the gourmet birds,” Shipley says. ”Pheasant has instant name recognition. Everyone knows pheasant. And it is such a beautiful bird.”
Pheasant should have a gamey flavor, Shipley says. And to achieve this, the birds are raised outdoors, under high nets and in plenty of weeds where they like to hide.
Most of the pheasants raised are sold to hunting clubs. These clubs want the more colorful male birds, so it`s the females that make it to restaurant tables. ”The hens are a better meat bird anyway. They are rounder, more mellow tasting and a better size,” Shipley says. A rooster is typically 4 to 5 pounds, too large for common portions. A hen, at 2 to 2 1/4 pounds, works better in restaurant recipes, he says.
Pheasant is a low-fat bird. ”In some cases, this is a criticism because the meat may seem dry,” Shipley says.
A 1 1/2- to 3-pound pheasant retails for about $4 to $5.50 a pound.
GUINEA HEN
”Ugliest head in the world,” Czimer says. But that`s not the main reason that farmers don`t like to raise these birds. The problem is that the birds are very noisy, squawking loudly if anyone enters the yard. And they produce very hard eggs.
”The eggs don`t hatch easily; so unless you use a sophisticated system of adding moisture in the incubator and calcium in the feed, production will be lower than other birds,” Shipley says.
About the same size as a female pheasant, a 2- to 3-pound guinea hen retails for about $4 a pound.
SQUAB
Squab is a baby pigeon. The all-dark-meat bird is especially revered in Chinese markets. ”My favorite bird,” Zubow says. But raising these little pigeons takes special care.
The parent pigeons produce only two eggs a month. Both parents share the incubation duties, then later feeding the young ones by mouth. The baby pigeons are collected at 4 weeks old, before they start to fly. ”Once they fly, they no longer are a squab, and the meat becomes tougher,” Shipley says. A 12- to 14-ounce squab sells for about $7 a pound.
PARTRIDGE
Nervous is the word typically used to describe to these birds. ”If a dog walks in the pen, partridges will run into the wall and pile up,” Shipley says. ”The ones on the top will survive, but those on the bottom will suffocate.”
If a partridge is under too much stress, it won`t eat. So they have to be raised in pens large enough to give them plenty of space. ”These are one of the most difficult birds to raise in captivity,” Shipley says.
Partridges are closely related to a pheasant. Chuckar partridge is the most common variety and easiest to raise. They are lean, white-meat birds.
A 14- to 16-ounce partridge sells for $7.95 a pound.
GROUSE
Grouse are hard to find because they are hard on each other. ”Grouse are one of the most cannibalistic birds in captivity,” Shipley says.
”Territorial instincts, no doubt. I don`t know anyone in this country who raises them.” They are, though, raised in Scotland. Expect to pay $12 each for a 10- to 12-ounce imported bird.
