Poêlés

A poêlé (pwah lay) is a classical preparation for white meats and poultry in which the item is cooked with a matignon (see sidebar) in a covered container and basted with butter before and during cooking. Because the container is covered, the procedure is not a dry-heat method and, therefore, is not a genuine roasting procedure. Nevertheless, poêléing is usually translated as “butter-roasting” and is traditionally discussed along with other roasting procedures. (Escoffier also refers to a poêlé as a roast.) In this book, we follow this tradition and include the method here rather than with moist-heat procedures.