In early summer at the 103-year-old Occidental restaurant in Washington, D.C., chef Rodney Scruggs introduced a “duo of poussin”: a boneless grilled breast with buttermilk-soaked fried dark meat that is reminiscent of the common duck preparation of a grilled breast and confit legs.
This item sells for $28 and will stay on the menu for the fall. He flavors his buttermilk with garlic, thyme and rosemary and puts some cayenne pepper and fennel in the flour.
Scruggs removes the upper thighbone but leaves in the lower leg bone, allowing guests the choice of picking it up in the traditional style or eating it with a knife and fork.
With the boned thigh and boneless grilled breast, Scruggs says, the dish is “kind of a quick pick-up item,” so it can all be cooked à la minute in about eight minutes.
He serves it with a sauce made from the roasted poussin bones, which he makes into a stock and then reduces, adding chamomile tea bags about three-quarters of the way through. Then he adds some veal demi-glace and finishes the dish with candied orange peel and fresh sour cherries from Iran.
