Faisan à la Périgueux

Faisan à la Périgueux (Périgueux-style truffled pheasant) teaches one severe, beautiful lesson: the bird, its truffles, and its sauce must taste as though they were cooked in one breath. Poêler, to covered-roast in butter, protects lean game while creating the concentrated liquor that gives the finished Périgueux sauce its authority. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is this: that liquor belongs to the sauce, but its grease does not.

The original formula assumed a saucier on staff, brown stock never off the fire, truffles measured for a grand bird, and enough hands to shape quenelles as service began. Its kitchen kept a salamander ready for finishing colour, too, though uncovering a snug cocotte, with a minute beneath the home broiler only if needed, gives this pheasant its proper bronze. Here the truffling preparation from Truffled Pullet (No. 1956) and the cooking preparation from Poëlings (No. 250) are scaled intact for one bird, prepared Périgueux sauce replaces the saucier's separate saucepan, and a small processor makes the game forcemeat. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The brigade quantities and repeated straining are scaffolding, so they can shrink. The truffling, butter-rich poëling in Madeira, last-minute game quenelles, and union of the cleared cooking liquor with Périgueux sauce are the dish, so they stay. Reduce that liquor attentively and stop while it is intense but still supple; this is the step that decides whether the sauce tastes profound or merely salty.