Recipe no. 298 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 146.
Ingredients
- hen
- string
- onion
- cloves
- carrots
- bouquet garni
- celery
- garlic cloves
- white wine
- broth
- salt
- pepper
- lard
- butter
- rice
- nutmeg
- saffron
- flour
- egg yolks
- lemon
Preparation
- Preparing the henClean the hen and truss it with string
- Cooking the hen's stockPut the hen into a saucepan with studded onion, cloves, carrots, bouquet garni, celery, garlic, white wine, water or broth; season with salt and pepper; cook
- Cooking the riceMelt lard or butter, add chopped onion, add 250 g rice, moisten with half the strained stock; season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, saffron; cook covered and gently about 25 minutes
- Making the sauceMix butter and flour, moisten with the remaining stock, bring to a boil, check seasoning
- Binding the sauceAdd a liaison of 2 egg yolks and lemon juice
- DressingServe the hen on the rice with the sauce apart
Reboul's text
After having cleaned your hen well and trussed it with string, put it into a saucepan with an onion studded with 2 cloves, 2 carrots, a bouquet garni, a sprig of celery, 2 cloves of garlic, a glass of white wine and a litre of water or, better still, broth; add the necessary salt and a few grains of pepper; let cook.
Put a spoonful of lard or as much butter into a saucepan, melt it, add a finely chopped onion and stir a moment over the heat without letting it colour; throw in 250 grams of rice, give it 2 turns and moisten with half the strained stock from the hen; the hen must, of course, be cooked by then. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg and a good pinch of saffron and let cook covered and very gently for about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile put a piece of butter the size of a walnut into a saucepan, add a spoonful of flour, stir a moment over the heat without letting it colour, moisten with the remainder of the hen's broth and bring to a boil; check that the seasoning is right. Add a liaison of 2 egg yolks, a lemon juice, and serve the hen on the rice with the sauce apart.
The hen with rice can be cooked the same way omitting the saffron.
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 |
|---|---|
| galino | hen |
| brida | truss |
| cebo | studded onion |
| ris | rice |
| safran | saffron |
| sausso | sauce |
| burre | butter |
| muscado | nutmeg |
| rous | roux |
| liesoun | liaison |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 298, page 146. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.