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Coulis de Grouse ou de Gelinotte à l’Ancienne
Created by Chef Juliette
Butter-browned grouse, white bread, juniper, and feathered-game consommé become a silken coulis through patient pounding and sieving, then cream and cold butter give the old formula its final gloss.
Coulis de Grouse ou de Gelinotte à l’Ancienne (old-style strained grouse or hazel-hen soup) teaches restraint in game cookery. Know this before you touch a pan: the legs and carcasses do not belong in the finished coulis. The source deliberately discards them, keeping the stronger, sometimes bitter parts of the bird from muddying a soup built on delicate breast meat, fried bread, and feathered-game consommé.
The original sends the cook to Coulis de Grives au Pain Noir, otherwise à l’Ardennaise (No. 666), assuming a saucier, consommé never off the fire, a mortar, and a tammy cloth. At home, a prepared game consommé, a strong blender, and a fine sieve do the same honest work. The mortar and the extra pair of hands are brigade scaffolding and can go. Browning the birds, frying ordinary white bread for the thickening, discarding the legs and carcasses, sieving twice, and finishing with real butter and cream are the dish, so every one stays.
The book’s two-bird quantity makes four concentrated first-course bowls, and I keep that scale rather than diluting it into a stockpot. Fry the bread evenly, then give the final sieve your patience. That sieve is the step that decides whether the coulis feels silken or merely thick.
Ingredients
Coulis de Grives au Pain Noir, otherwise à l’Ardennaise, governing formula
Quantity
1 governing formula (No. 666)
applied with the grouse and white-bread substitutions below
whole grouse or whole hazel-hens
Quantity
2 birds (about 1½ to 2 lb / 700 to 900 g total)
drawn, cleaned, and checked carefully for shot
unsalted butter for frying
Quantity
4 tablespoons (60 ml / 57 g)
divided
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Coulis de Grives au Pain Noir, otherwise à l’Ardennaise, governing formulaapplied with the grouse and white-bread substitutions below | 1 governing formula (No. 666) |
| whole grouse or whole hazel-hensdrawn, cleaned, and checked carefully for shot | 2 birds (about 1½ to 2 lb / 700 to 900 g total) |
| unsalted butter for fryingdivided | 4 tablespoons (60 ml / 57 g) |
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