Name: Poule-au-Pot
Yield: Serves 6 to 8
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: 6 ounces/170 g cured raw ham, chopped; 1 garlic clove, finely chopped; 1 large bouquet garni; 1 tablespoon/15 g butter; 1 cup/50 g fresh bread crumbs; 1 cup/250 ml. milk; ½ cup/100 g long-grain rice, or 1 handful of angel hair pasta; ½ teaspoon salt; 8 leeks (about 2½ pounds/1.2 kg., white and green parts, cut into 4-inch/10-cm. lengths; 1 egg, beaten to mix; one 6-pound/2.7-kg stewing hen or large roasting chicken; 6 quarts/6 liters water, more as needed; 3 chicken livers (about 3 ounces/90 g total); 1½ pounds/675 g turnips, quartered; 1 cinnamon stick; salt and pepper; 2 pounds/900 g baby carrots, or medium carrots, cut into 4-inch/10-cm. lengths; 1 teaspoon quatre épices; 1 stalk celery, cut into pieces; 10 peppercorns; sea salt, for serving; 1 onion, studded with 2 whole cloves; ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Preparation info

Serves
6 to 8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Country Cooking of France

By Anne Willan

Published 2007

About

Poule-au-Pot is the stuff of legend, a dish that gathers families together with a big smile. In the early 1600s, Henri IV rashly vowed to put a chicken in the pot of every French household on Sundays. The Poule-au-Pot tradition comes from Béarn, the king’s home province, but there is no standard recipe. In some versions, the chicken is cooked simply with vegetables, leaving out the ham stuffing I suggest here. Or to make the bird go further, you can add extra packages of stuffing, wrapped i