Faisan à la Périgueux

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •3 qt (2.8 L) heavy covered cocotte, preferably oval
• •Small food processor
• •Two coffee spoons for shaping quenelles
• •Instant-read thermometer
• •Fine-mesh strainer and fat separator
• •Small heavy saucepan
• •Large warmed oval serving platter
• •Heated sauceboat

Instructions

1. 1

   Truffle the pheasant

   Prepare the pheasant with the home-scaled truffling preparation from Truffled Pullet (No. 1956), keeping that preparation and its proportions intact while reducing only its quantity. Close the bird securely as directed, then dry the exterior and season it with the salt and black pepper. Keep it cold until thirty minutes before cooking; that short tempering takes the deepest chill from the bird without leaving raw game standing about.

   Do not pack the cavity until it strains. The fatty truffle preparation needs room to soften and perfume the bird, and an overfilled pheasant cooks unevenly. Hold any excess for another use rather than forcing it inside.
2. 2

   Make the game forcemeat

   Chill the processor bowl and blade. Process the cold game meat with the quenelle salt and white pepper until it becomes fine and tacky, then add the egg white and process just until absorbed. With the machine pulsing, add the cold cream gradually; stop as soon as the forcemeat is smooth, light, and cohesive. Fold in the diced truffle by hand, cover, and chill for at least thirty minutes. Poach a teaspoonful in barely trembling water and taste it. If the tester feels coarse or leaks fat, the mixture became warm; chill it thoroughly and process it for a few seconds to restore the emulsion. Ça se rattrape.

3. 3

   Begin the poëling

   Heat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Set up the home-scaled Poëlings (No. 250) in a snug 3 qt (2.8 L) covered cocotte, then settle the truffled pheasant breast up and cook it according to that preparation's butter-rich method. Follow its basting rhythm and add no liquid during the first thirty-five minutes. This dry beginning matters: liquid added too early turns poëling into a pale braise and steals the concentrated roast flavour the sauce needs.

4. 4

   Add Madeira and bronze

   Pour the Madeira around the nearly cooked pheasant, never directly over its skin. Cover and cook for eight to ten minutes so the wine enters the poëling liquor, then uncover and continue until the breast is burnished and the thickest part of the thigh reaches 165°F (74°C), usually another eight to fifteen minutes. If the temperature is right but the skin remains pale, place the uncovered cocotte about 6 in (15 cm) beneath the broiler for sixty to ninety seconds, watching without blinking. Lift the bird to a warm platter, cover it loosely, and rest it for fifteen minutes.

5. 5

   Join the sauces

   Complete the cooking liquor as directed in Poëlings (No. 250), allowing its stock to draw the flavour from the butter and aromatic vegetables before the fat is removed. Strain it finely, clear away every visible trace of grease, and reduce the liquor to ½ cup (120 ml). Warm the Périgueux sauce in a small saucepan, whisk in the reduced liquor, and simmer gently until the sauce is glossy and nappant, coating the back of a spoon in an even veil. If it tightens too far, loosen it with a tablespoon of water; if a greasy eye appears, let the sauce settle for a minute and skim again. Taste before adding salt because reduction has already done that work.

6. 6

   Poach the quenelles

   Bring the water and poaching salt to the faintest tremble while the pheasant rests. Dip two coffee spoons in the hot water, shape the cold forcemeat into sixteen to twenty small oval quenelles, and lower them in as they are formed. Poach without boiling for four to six minutes, turning once, until they feel lightly resilient and reach 165°F (74°C) at the centre. Test the first quenelle alone; if it begins to fray, lower the heat and return the mixture to the cold for ten minutes before shaping the rest.

7. 7

   Build the proper border

   Set the pheasant breast up on the warmed serving platter and remove its string. Lift the quenelles out carefully, blot their bases, and arrange them shoulder to shoulder around the bird in the classical border. Pour the finished Périgueux sauce into a heated sauceboat and serve it separately, so each carved piece receives sauce without hiding the burnished skin. Bring the whole bird to the table before carving. À table!

Chef Tips

• •This dish truly needs black truffle. In season, use firm, fragrant black Périgord truffles; outside it, properly frozen whole truffles are more honest than a tired fresh specimen. Truffle oil cannot perform the work of actual truffle in the bird, quenelles, and sauce.
• •Choose a plump farmed pheasant around 2½ to 3 lb (1.1 to 1.4 kg) if you can. A wild bird has finer flavour but less protective fat, so the linked truffling and poëling preparations become even more important. Check a wild pheasant carefully for shot.
• •The Périgueux sauce must begin with a genuine brown foundation and visible black truffle. Bottled gravy thickened with starch will become heavy when the poëling liquor is added, while a properly reduced sauce becomes more fluent and more fragrant.
• •Keep the forcemeat cold from the first cut to the last quenelle. Warm cream and warm game make a greasy, granular paste; cold ingredients form the fine emulsion that lets the quenelles swell while remaining tender.
• •Pour a structured red Bergerac or Pécharmant. Both have enough depth for pheasant and truffle without flattening the Madeira-scented sauce.

Advance Preparation

• •The pheasant may be prepared with Truffled Pullet (No. 1956) twenty-four to forty-eight hours ahead and kept well covered in the cold, which gives the truffle time to perfume the flesh. If the evening begins with an unprepared bird, give it at least two hours after truffling; the aroma will be gentler, but the method still holds.
• •The Périgueux sauce can be made up to two days ahead and chilled. Reheat it gently before adding the reduced poëling liquor, since that fresh liquor is what finally joins the sauce to the bird.
• •The game forcemeat may be mixed up to eight hours ahead and held very cold. Shape and poach the quenelles only at the last moment, as the source requires; their tenderness is lost if they wait in hot water.
• •Assemble the measured preparation for Poëlings (No. 250) earlier in the day, but begin cooking the bird only when the truffled pheasant has lost its deepest refrigerator chill.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 400g)