Poussin with walnut lasagne and courgettes is a dish inspired by the traditions of Piedmont in Northern Italy with a bit of a fusion nod to Japanese cuisine. A very thin lasagne of walnuts and spinach is served as a side dish.
Chicken Little
This poussin with walnut lasagne is a dish that sprung out of an offer. On the Brexit-depleted supermarket shelves of central London, I chanced upon a very good deal on corn-fed poussin. A vague memory of a dish I once ate in Turin and a little imagination and, before I knew it, we were finger-lickin' good. Recalling the original Italian chicken dish, it is accompanied by a very simple lasagne in lieu of other carbs.
Don't look at the long instructions and assume this is a fussy, complicated dish: it isn't. Yes, it has a few more steps than your average stir fry or pasta, but it actually isn't difficult to make and you'll be glad of the effort when you taste it. You can prepare it all at the same time, or you can prepare the lasagne in advance and re-heat to serve. Similarly, you can prepare the stuffing before cooking the poussin and store in the fridge for a couple of days before it finds its way into the birds' cavities.
The portions in this recipe are for two adult diners. Yes, the stuck record: "Scale them up or down as needed." Of course, you can also make this dish with a larger chicken for a larger group of four or more diners. However, while it is perfectly delicious, I believe that some of the flavour subtleties that come through perfectly with poussin are not as notable when using a bigger bird.
Shopping list
for the poussin with walnut lasagne
1 poussin per diner (i.e. x 2)
Three or four stems of celery, half finely sliced, the rest roughly chopped
1 carrot, sliced
2 medium white or red onions, cubed
1 sweet pointed red pepper, diced
2 pork sausages (or the equivalent in pork sausage meat)
Salt and pepper to taste
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 lemon
1 vegetable stock cube or jelly
a little olive oil
for the walnut lasagne
3 to 4 lasagne pasta sheets
Approx. 200g fresh spinach
Two handfuls of walnuts; roughly crushed in a pestle with a mortar
2 tbspns of plain flour
2 tbspns of unsalted butter
Approx. 200ml full fat milk
Approx. 2 handfuls of strongly flavoured hard cheese (such as pecorino romano, cheddar, Comté or Gruyère )
a pinch of grated nutmeg (optional)
for the courgette accompaniment
1 large, long courgette, cut into long "eels", rough vertical slices julienne-style
2 tabspns of honey
2 tabspns of dark soy sauce
A sprinkling of blackened sesame seeds
Approx. 2 tabspns of "wok oil" (or peanut/sunflower oil with a little sesame oil added).
Cooking Method
the béchamel — for the lasagne
Heat a frying pan, adding 2 tbspns of unsalted butter on a high heat. Once the butter has melted and begins to bubble, reduce to a moderate heat. Add 2 tbspns of plain flour. Stir vigorously to form a roux then add a liberal amount of milk, stirring constantly. Once the elements begin to combine, add your first liberal sprinkling of strongly flavoured hard cheese of choice
Add the cheese and milk at regular intervals, stirring constantly to ensure the béchamel remains smooth and "clot" or lump-free
Flavour with salt and black pepper to taste once the sauce reaches its optimal constituency
Remove from the heat and allow to cool
the stuffing — for the poussin
Heat a little olive oil in another pan. When hot, add the cubed onion and sweat. Shortly afterwards, add the crushed garlic and stir constantly so that neither catches
Once sweated, add the red sweet pepper, stirring in. Shortly afterwards, add the celery. Stir and sauté the mix
Once these ingredients have melded, add the meat from the sausages (or sausage meat equivalent). Stir and season. Your intention here is not to completely cook the stuffing but to ensure that it is prepared to be fully cooked in the oven later
Once the sausage meat is lightly cooked, remove the stuffing from the heat and allow to cool
the lasagne
Bring a fairly large pot of salted water to the boil and add the uncooked lasagne sheets once boiling vigorously. NB. you don't have to, but using a more roomy pot will ensure that the lasagne sheets do not stick together
Boil vigorously for 6 to 8 mins (see the instructions on the pasta you are using)
Once the sheets are on the more resistant side of al dente, remove individually using tongs and drain by draping over the edge of a colander
Wilt the spinach for 1 min in a microwave (alternatively, blanche in the water from which you have removed the lasagne sheets and drain)
Grease a shallow oven-proof dish with a little olive oil using clean fingers or a pastry brush. Gently lay out the base sheet of lasagne. Add a thin layer of wilted spinach and smear with a liberal layer of béchamel using a spatula or wide knife. Add a sprinkling of crushed walnuts. Then add the next layer of lasagne
Repeat this process, season each layer with a little salt and pepper (and a pinch of grated nutmeg, if using). Build up no more than four layers of lasagne (remember this is a side dish). In addition to the béchamel and crushed walnuts, you may wish to add some grated strong cheese (e.g. pecorino or parmesan ) to the top layer
Bake in a pre-heated oven on a medium heat for about 20min or until the top layer is crisply browned. You can do this a few days in advance of serving and simply re-heat before plating or time it to share the oven with the poussin
the poussin
Add a liberal amount of water to a large pot (about a third full) and bring to the boil. Once boiling, add the roughly chopped celery, carrot, bay leaves and the vegetable stock cube/jelly. Stir to ensure the stock cube dissolves
Cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice of half of the lemon into the water and add the whole "shell" of the lemon to the water
Into this broth, add the poussin, ensuring that you have removed any giblets from the cavity. Roll the birds around to ensure they are full coated with liquid
Cover and reduce the heat, simmering for about 12 to 15 mins on a low heat. Remove the poussin from the stock and drain (you can keep the broth as the base for a stock). If you are really in a rush, you can entirely leave out these steps above, though I strongly recommend you don't. It's something I first learned as the "first step" to perfect roast chicken in Italian Renaissance recipes and later learned was alive and thriving in the north of Italy in my travels. It makes for damned fine roast chicken that is moist and succulent
Take the other half of the lemon and scrape off the zest. Mix together with the crushed cloves of garlic and a liberal pinch of rock salt. Rub into the cavities
Gently push the pre-prepared stuffing into the cavities of the birds. Place the poussin "upside down" in a roasting dish, basting with a little olive oil. Slice the lemon half into very thin slices and arrange covering the surface of the birds' skin
Roast on a medium heat in a pre-heated oven, turning two or three times during the course of the cooking and removing the lemon slices once browned/blackened to allow the birds' skin to crisp in the final stages of cooking
Once cooked to perfection, remove from the oven and decant to a dish with a lid (or wrap in tin foil) and allow to rest for at least 5mins before plating
the courgette "eels"
About 10 min before you plan to serve the poussin, heat the wok oil in a wok or frying pan. When the oil is hot, add half of the honey, stirring it. While it is still dissolving, throw in the courgette strips, ensuring that you mix them thoroughly with the oil and honey
Cook in the manner of a stir fry; shaking the pan and moving around frequently, adding the soy and remaining honey little by little
Once the courgette is succulently softened, add the blackened sesame seeds, turn off the heat and stir in
Plate all three elements and enjoy.
Alternatives
Well, given that poussin is at the heart of the dish, sadly there is no viable vegan or vegetarian alternatives. That said, the courgette "eels" are vegan and the walnut lasagne are lacto-vegetarian and both make great dish dishes for vegan or veggie main courses. For example I served both with a vegetarian pumpkin and sage pie and they worked really well.
News for pescatarians, however, is somewhat better. There is an old 17th-century recipe that describes serving this kind of lasagne-as-carb with oven baked perch. I actually used the remainder of the walnut lasagne to accompany rainbow trout, flash fried in butter, lemon and sorrel and that was delicious. I'm probably being overly influenced by Turn's inland location, but I do think of it working particularly well with freshwater fish. That said, I know that the courgette "eels" go particularly well with smoked eel: that's what I "invented" them for...
Pairings
I'm sure there are some great pairings to be had with this one given it's complex flavours, butch whites being my intuitive guess. However, I will have to come back to you on this: this time I had it with a simple glass of iced sparkling water with a slice of lemon.
Initial thoughts are that it would work incredibly well with one of those alpine whites from Switzerland—a pinot gris, for example—or one of those fantastic whites from the Alto Adige. Or, indeed, one of those Valpolicella and Barbera d'Asti red wines made with Corvina grape that are often served chilled in Italy during the summer.
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