Poularde Lady Curzon

Poularde Lady Curzon (rice-stuffed poached pullet with sauce Indienne, a curry-scented poultry velouté) teaches one true thing before you touch the stove: the poaching pot is part of the sauce. Fit the bird snugly and its liquor comes out concentrated, savory, and ready to carry the curry and cream. Give it a cavernous stockpot and all that character wanders off into water.

The original recipe assumed prepared Pilaff Rice (for the Stuffing of Fowls) (No. 2256), a stockpot never off the fire, and a saucier ready to turn poultry velouté into sauce Indienne. For four people, one plump bird and one close-fitting cocotte do the work. The separate stock station and sauce station were brigade scaffolding, so they can go. The enriched rice, the barely trembling poach, and the sauce built from the bird's liquor are the dish, so they stay. There is no salamander finish to imitate because this poularde is coated, not browned. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The finished bird arrives under an ivory-gold gloss, with fragrant rice inside and bronze cèpes held in cream beside it. The step that decides everything is the poach. Keep the liquid below a boil and the flesh remains tender while the rice finishes cooking; let it roll and both bird and sauce lose their delicacy.