Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [163]
7. Transfer the chicken to a carving board or large platter, letting it settle for a few minutes.
8. Spoon off all but a little bit of the fat in the pot. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons water, turn the heat up to high, and while boiling away the water use a wooden spoon to scrape loose cooking residues from the bottom and sides. Pour the pot juices into a warm saucer or small sauceboat.
9. Carve the chicken at the table, starting at the neck, making thin slices. Pour a few drops of the warm pot juices over each slice when serving. If serving the bird cold—at room temperature, that is—omit the juices.
Pan-Roasted Squab Pigeons
THE CLASSIC METHOD for cooking feathered game relies heavily on the aroma of fresh sage, as does this recipe. Also contributing intensity of flavor is the bird’s own liver, which is stuffed into the cavity. The birds are roasted in the unmistakable Italian style, in a partly covered pan over the stove, rather than in the oven, and cooked until they are tender through and through, the meat ready to fall off the bone.
For 4 to 6 servings (A generous portion would be 1 squab per person.
When preceded by a substantial first course, ½ squab is adequate,
the rest divided up for possible second helpings.)
4 fresh squab, about 1 pound each, plucked thoroughly clean (if the squab don’t come with the livers, add 4 fresh chicken livers)
1 dozen fresh sage leaves
Pancetta, cut into 4 thin strips, 1½ inches long and ½ inch wide
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
⅔ cup dry white wine
1. Remove any organs from the birds’ interior, discarding the hearts and gizzards, but keeping the livers. Wash the squab inside and out in cold running water, and pat thoroughly dry on the inside as well as the outside with cloth or paper towels. Stuff the cavity of each bird with 2 sage leaves, 1 strip of pancetta, 1 liver, a couple of pinches of salt, and grindings of black pepper.
2. Choose a saute pan that can subsequently contain the squab without overlapping. Put in the butter and oil, turn the heat on to medium high, and when the butter foam subsides, add the remaining 4 sage leaves, then the squab. Brown the birds all over, sprinkle with salt and pepper, turn them over once or twice, then add the wine. Let the wine bubble briskly for 20 to 30 seconds, then adjust heat to cook at a slow simmer, and put a lid slightly ajar on the pan. Cook until the squab thighs feel very tender when prodded with a fork and the meat comes easily off the bone, approximately 1 hour. Turn the birds once every 15 minutes. If the liquid in the pan becomes insufficient, add 2 or 3 tablespoons of water as needed.
3. Transfer the squab when done to a warm serving platter. If serving ½ a bird per person, halve them with poultry scissors. Tip the pan and spoon off some of the fat. Add 2 tablespoons of water, turn the heat up to high, and while boiling away the water, scrape the bottom and sides of the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen cooking residues. Pour the pan juices over the squab and serve at once.
Roast Duck
THE AIM of this recipe was, when using birds with more fat than one finds on ducks in Italy, to transform them to the savory leanness of their Italian counterparts. The procedure used is borrowed in part from Chinese cooking. The duck is given a brief preliminary dunking in boiling water, and then thoroughly gone over with a hair dryer. The first step opens the skin’s pores wide, the second ensures that they stay open. When the bird roasts in the oven later, the fat melts and slowly runs off through the