Poulet Saute Bourguigonne

This is another recipe from Boulestin, adapted from one for a young chicken weighing about a kilo (size 10) to a larger bird with a proportionately longer cooking time. The secret to good presentation seems to be not to turn the chicken once it's simmering; otherwise the skin and flesh take on a purplish hue from the wine. If using a commercial bouquet, remove it about halfway through to avoid an overly strong, possibly bitter flavour. Boulestin's chicken is sauteed in burgundy which, in Australia, is now called pinot noir.

Poulet Saute Bourguigonne

I chicken, size 14 or 16, cut into 7 or 8 pieces - drumsticks, thighs, wings and breast
50g butter
2 rashers bacon, thinly sliced
8 small onions
Fresh parsley, thyme and a bay leaf tied into a bouquet, or a commercial bouquet garni
1 glass red wine, preferably pinot noir
125g mushrooms
Salt, pepper

In a large frypan, saute the chicken pieces, onions and bacon in butter heated to the foaming stage for 2 or 3 minutes only. Turn the pieces, put in salt, pepper, a bouquet and a glass of red wine, preferably pinot noir.

Cover and simmer on a low heat for 40 minutes. Then add the mushrooms, which have been sliced and cooked in butter for a few minutes, remove the bouquet and let the dish simmer 5 minutes more.

This is a dish with a short sauce. It goes well with the wine in which it has been cooked, in this case a Port Phillip Estate 2010 Pinot Noir from Victoria's Mornington Peninsular.

Serves 4.

Cream of Green Pea Soup

While the split- or dried-pea soup is more popular these days, fresh peas or even pea-pods were just as often used to make soup in the 1920s. Recipes called for a white sauce into which the cooked peas, or pea pods, were sieved. I'm not sure when the first canned soups came on the market, but in 1919, in Rockhampton of all places, Heinz advertised a cream of tomato and a cream of green pea soup alongside its range of canned baked beans, spaghetti, picked onions and relishes. By 1928 canned soups had become a pantry standard. Readers didn't need the women's pages to tell them that cream of tomato, pea or celery soups made for "delicious little dinners in flat or house... served straight from the pantry shelf, via and electric or gas stove".

My green pea soup has been adapted from one of Boulestin's. Whereas his stock is made with a chicken carcase, lean bacon, an onion and a little mint, I already had a plain stock made from last week's roast chicken so I sauteed the onion and bacon, added the chicken stock and then stirred in the cooked peas, pureed with milk. I also followed his directions for thickening the soup with an egg yolk and cream.

Cream of Green Pea Soup

500g green peas, fresh or frozen 
1 cup milk, or half milk and half cream
1 egg yolk
30g butter 
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 rashers lean bacon, diced 
750ml chicken stock 
60 ml cream
Fresh mint

Boil peas in salted water about 5 minutes, until tender; drain and whiz to a puree with the milk and egg yolk in a food processor. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan melt the butter and saute the onion and bacon a few minutes until onion is soft. Add chicken stock and bring nearly to the boil, then stir in the pureed peas and milk and bring to the boiling point. Just before serving, add a good dollop of cream and a little mint, finely chopped. Serves 6.

Episode 8 - Away with the Fairies

Miss Lavender's garden apartment has a path flanked with garden gnomes leading to the door, her taste in interior design tends towards pink and fairies, and she writes and illustrates the sort of children's stories that end with a moral. No wonder she is murdered.

In the course of her investigations, Phryne Fisher takes a job at the women's magazine which published Miss Lavender's stories (because mothers expected them) and her agony aunt responses to reader's letters (who expected her grim Presbyterian rectitude).

Between writing fashion notes, interviewing Miss Lavender's fellow tenants and waiting with increasing alarm for the return of her lover Lin Chung from a silk-buying trip to Shanghai, Phryne barely has time for the occasional salad lunch at the Adventuresses Club. Her one proper dinner at home is spoiled when she learns that Lin Chung is being held hostage by pirates.

Like Phryne's dinner of soup, poulet ragout and apple charlotte, the menu for tonight's episode tends towards green and pink: 

Green Pea Soup

Poulet Saute Bourguignonne

Raspberry Souffle

Vanilla Souffle

This is another recipe from Boulestin, adapting a recipe for 6-8 people to one for 3-4 people. For 6-8 people, double the quantities of milk, flour and sugar and use 5 egg yolks and 6 whites. Do not be afraid to check the souffle.

Vanilla Souffle

280 ml milk
vanilla bean
30g plain flour
120g sugar
4 eggs, separated

Bring the milk with the vanilla pod to the boil and keep it hot. Put in a flat saucepan the sifted flour, sugar and three egg yolks. Mix well and add the hot milk, little by little. Cook, whipping well, until it reaches the consistency of thick cream. Let the mixture get cold then add the four egg whites, whipped to a stiff froth. Fill the souffle dishes (lightly buttered and sprinkled with sugar) up to three-quarters and cook in a moderate oven about 10-12 minutes.

Roast Chicken with Green Beans

Boulestin's ideal is a young chicken roasted on a spit with tender flesh and crispy skin.

To achieve a similar effect in a domestic kitchen he wraps the chicken in thin bacon fat and cooks it standing on a grill in the baking dish, basting often. When it's finished, remove the bacon fat and allow the skin to colour. Just before serving, pour melted pork fat through a paper funnel and set it alight as it comes out so drops of burning fat fall on the bird. The burning fat gives a slightly charred taste and appearance, he writes, "that crispness which is so appreciated in birds roasted in front of a wood fire".

Boulestin doesn't mention flavourings, but I put an onion, four garlic cloves, parsley and thyme in the cavity.

Serve with a watercress salad seasoned with salt, pepper and a little vinegar or lemon juice. Or, in this case, with roasted potatoes and green beans.

The gravy is simply a little water added to the roasting pan, and reduced. I poured off the pan juices into a glass, put it in the freezer for a few minutes and spooned off the fat before returning the juices to the baking dish and adding the water with a little salt and pepper.

French Onion Soup with Gruyere and Cognac

Boulestin doesn't call it French onion soup, it's simply Soupe a l'Oignon, and apart from the number of onions, he doesn't give quantities. He also omits the cognac, which I'm adding towards the end. For four small serves, I'm guessing 3 cups of water.

French Onion Soup with Gruyere and Cognac

2 large onions, finely sliced
50g butter
50 ml cognac
50g Gruyere cheese
baguette
salt, pepper

Saute the onions in butter until golden brown. Add 3 cups hot water plus a little extra to allow for reduction; season with salt and pepper. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, adding the cognac about 5 minutes before the end to allow it to cook off. Have ready a few thin slices of baguette, dried in the oven. Pour your soup over these in the soup tureen, sprinkle with grated cheese and quickly brown under the grill.

Episode 7 - Murder in Montparnasse

With Phryne's flashbacks to Paris after the Armistice in November 1918, Bert and Cec's adventures while AWOL for 24 hrs at the same time, and the contemporary - 1928 - narrative centering on the (fictional) Cafe Anatole in St Kilda, the menu for Murder in Montparnasse just has to be French.

I'm finding it hard to resist Phryne's cafe lunch of French onion soup "made with cognac, with real Gruyere cheese melted onto real baguettes", quenelles of pheasant poached in broth, "poulet royale with French beans", and, to finish, vanilla souffle, a glass of cognac and a cup of coffee.

Slight problem: Boulestin doesn't have a recipe for "poulet royale". Is it "Chicken a la King", an abomination devised in the 1890s or early 1900s, most likely in Philadelphia, involving steamed chicken, sauteed onion, red, green and yellow capsicums and mushrooms, a white sauce and finally - if you follow the Women's Weekly Original Cookbook from 1970 which is a little bit fancy - three egg yolks, lemon juice and celery salt?

Or has Cafe Anatole adapted to local tastes and concocted an Australian "Sauce Royale", the recipe for which appeared in the Burnie (Tasmania) Advocate in April 1938? It will surprise no-one, I think, that the Burnie Sauce Royale is based on white sauce to which is added: 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 2 tablespoons tomato sauce, 2 tablespoons vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and a little mustard. It is apparently delicious served with grilled meat of any kind.

But a reference later in the novel to "poulet reine" suggests that "royale" may have been a slip. Poulet reine is a size of chicken: a 1-2 kg roasting chicken.

The main course will be poulet rôti, from Recipes of Boulestin, with roast potatoes and green beans (rather than watercress salad) and a short gravy made by adding a little water to the roasting pan and reducing it. On this point Boulestin is quite firm: "There is absolutely no reason why you should have out of a bird a sauceboatful of gravy, and the addition of meat stock will simply make it taste like soup and spoil the dish altogether."

The menu for Murder in Montparnasse:

French Onion Soup with Gruyere and Cognac

Roast Chicken with Green Beans

Vanilla Souffle