Recipe no. 355 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 171.
Ingredients
- thrushes
- muslin
- bacon fat
- onion
- carrot
- thyme
- bay leaf
- madeira
- juice
- butter
- coulis sauce
- aspic jelly
Preparation
- Prepare the thrushesPrepare boned and stuffed thrushes as for the croustade. Wrap each in muslin.
- BraiseTie and place in a sauté pan with bards of bacon fat, onions, carrots, thyme, bay leaf. Sweat covered. Drizzle with madeira, reduce. Moisten with juice, cook 15 minutes gently.
- CoolTake out and unwrap once cooled.
- Prepare the sauceBrown the carcasses, onion, carrot, thyme, bay leaf in butter. Drizzle with madeira, reduce. Moisten with thick coulis sauce and aspic jelly. Cook an hour.
- Finish the sauceStrain through a cloth. Let it clarify 15 minutes while skimming. Take off the heat, cool while stirring.
- Dip the thrushesDip the thrushes in the sauce as it begins to set. Let cool on a marble slab with a coating of sauce.
- GlazeDip in aspic jelly nearly cold. Place in small paper cases. Work in a cool place.
Reboul's text
Prepare the boned and stuffed thrushes exactly as for the croustade (see that entry). Wrap each one in a small piece of muslin, and, tied, place them in a sauté pan at the bottom of which you will have put a few thin bards of bacon fat, rounds of onion and carrot, thyme and bay leaf; let them sweat covered; drizzle with a glass of madeira which you let reduce; then moisten with good juice and let it cook a quarter of an hour very gently.
Take them out onto a plate, and unwrap them once cooled.
Separately, put to brown in butter in a casserole the carcasses of the thrushes with a carrot and an onion cut into dice; then add a sprig of thyme and a bay leaf; drizzle with a glass of madeira which you let reduce; moisten with a thick coulis sauce and a few spoonfuls of aspic jelly; let it cook an hour, then strain through a cloth into another casserole to let it clarify, that is to say boil for about a quarter of an hour, skimming it carefully.
Then take it off the heat to cool it, stirring it with a spoon. Once cold, it should begin to take on consistency. This is the moment to dip the prepared thrushes into it one by one, spearing them on the end of a larding needle. They must then be set on a marble slab; a good coating of sauce must cover them. This sauce having set, dip the thrushes one after the other into aspic jelly that is almost cold and about to set.
It only remains to place the thrushes thus prepared into small paper cases.
It is understood that to coat or glaze the thrushes with the sauce and the jelly one must work in a cool place.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| desoussa | to bone |
| enfeissela | to tie |
| faire | to sweat |
| arrousa | to drizzle |
| redurre | to reduce |
| bagna | to moisten |
| couire | to cook |
| passa | to strain |
| escuma | to skim |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 355, page 171. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.