Laura the Gastronaut > Julia Child > Poultry > Poulet Roti a la Normande

Poulet Roti a la Normande

April 18, 2019 | Updated March 23, 2022 | Laura

✽ Recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I | Julia Child ✽

Julia Child Recipes 10-13 | 515 recipes to go!

✽ Roast Chicken Basted with Cream, Herb and Giblet Stuffing [Poulet Roti a la Normande], p. 243
✽ Blanched, Chopped Spinach- Preliminary Cooking [Epinards Blanchis], p. 468
✽ Cooked Chopped Spinach- Puree of Spinach [Puree d'Epinards Simple], p. 469
✽ Spinach Braised in Butter- Buttered Spinach [Epinards Etuves au Beurre], p. 470

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✽ Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I was written by Julia Child who co-authored with Simone Beck & Louisette Bertholle and was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961.

✽ You can buy Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I which contains these recipes here. (affiliate link)

The purpose of this Julia Child section of my blog is to document my journey of learning how to cook. To show my successes, my failures, and what I learned along the way.

Since I didn't create these recipes (if only!), I do not post exact amounts of ingredients or word-for-word instructions. If any of these recipes spark your interest, I highly recommend you buy Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (affiliate link). It's a great investment and learning tool and contains hundreds of classic recipes.

I hope that you enjoy reading my thoughts, learn something new, and leave inspired to try a new recipe. Bon appétit!

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✽ Butter Count: +12 TB

✽ Cost: $13.16 [~$2.63 per serving]

- Roast Chicken Basted with Cream, Herb and Giblet Stuffing= $5.62 [4-5 servings]
- Spinach Braised in Butter- Buttered Spinach= $7.54 [6 servings]

Check out the total Julia Child butter count & cost here!

→ Looking for a different Julia Child recipe? Here's a list of all of the completed and pending Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipes!

So, let me tell you about this chicken. This is the chicken that I entered into a drawing for Blackland Farm & Cattle- Waco, TX. I didn’t win the drawing, but my taste buds did win.

If you have read about my previous Julia Child roast chicken that I cooked, you know that they are a little more detailed than just putting your chicken in the oven. The chicken is first trussed (I now own a big enough needle!) then buttered and checked on every 10 minutes or so to re-baste or turn over. This chicken was a little more special though because there was stuffing.

Amazing stuffing. Amazing, rich giblet stuffing. This was my first time ever making stuffing. Where I come from, we make dressing for important occasions so stuffing a chicken with its own insides was a little disturbing. However, this stuffing was so good that my boyfriend mentioned it weeks after the fact saying that he was still daydreaming about it.

Looking for more Julia Child chicken recipes to read about?

→ Check out all of the poultry recipes that I've completed so far!

Spinach Iron Absorption

✽ Spinach contains a lot of iron, but it also contains something called oxalic acid or oxalate. Oxalic acid is an inhibitor which binds to iron and calcium and makes it more difficult for the body to absorb iron. However, when you cook spinach, the oxalic acid will break down preventing it from binding to iron. This means that cooked spinach will provide you with more iron than raw spinach.

Which country produces the most spinach?

✽ China produces the most spinach in the world- 26 million tons a year, in fact! This accounts for almost 92% of all spinach production. In the United States, California is the top spinach producer- producing a little over 1% of all spinach.

Spinach History

✽ According to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruciton, it is thought that spinach originated in the Middle East. Arab traders then took spinach to India and China. In China, spinach can be dated all the way back to 650 AD. Spinach would then eventually start to become popular throughout Europe.

Spinach was brought to the United States in the 18th century and was already considered popular by 1806. The sales of spinach was then grow even more during the 1920s when Popeye the Sailorman made an appearance. Today, the average American eats about 1.5 pounds of spinach every year.

How to Make Roast Chicken Basted with Cream, Herb and Giblet Stuffing

✽ Steps 1 & 2: Cook Giblets and Make Stuffing

First thing to do is make the giblet stuffing. It consisted of the gizzard, heart, liver, shallot, bread crumbs, cream cheese, butter, and seasonings. The organs and shallot are sauteed in a bit of butter and oil prior to being added to the mix.

✽ Step 3: Roast Chicken & Baste with Cream

The chicken is roasted in the same manner as Julia Child's first roast chicken recipe.

✽ Step 4 & 5: Make Cream Sauce and Spoon over Chicken

After the chicken was roasted, a sauce was made out of chicken stock, cream, butter, and drops of lemon juice. This is a very rich sauce. It goes really well with the chicken since those delicious coagulated chicken roasting juices are added as well. YUM.

How to Make Spinach Braised in Butter

✽ Steps 1 & 2: Blanch, Chop, and Cook Spinach

So you may have noticed that my spinach recipe actually knocked off 3 recipes! The first recipe just consisted of blanching (dropping the spinach in boiling water for 2 minutes) and chopping the spinach.

I will mention that the recipe calls for 3 pounds of fresh spinach which is A LOT of fresh spinach. I halved the recipe, and it still looks like so much that I almost didn’t even cook 1 ½ pounds. But the moment you blanch it, you’ll be wondering where it all went! It decreases in size so much!

The next recipe just consisted of cooking the chopped blanched spinach you just made. You cook it with, well, butter of course and a little bit of nutmeg.

✽ Step 3 & 4: Cook Spinach in Butter & Fold in More Butter

The third recipe is braising the spinach in, well, MORE butter. The spinach will become very tender and absorb all the goodness of the butter. The last step involves folding in additional butter!

So, there you have it. A beautiful, delicious bird served with a healthy vegetable smothered in butter.

*This blog, Laura The Gastronaut, and this post were/are not endorsed or supported by Julia Child or The Julia Child Foundation.

Category: Julia Child, Poultry, Vegetables Cuisine: French
Keywords: braised spinach, butter spinach, Julia Child recipe, poulet roti, sauteed spinach

✽ Did you make this recipe too?
→ Let me know by leaving a comment below and sharing on Instagram. Tag @laurathegastronaut and hashtag it #laurathegastronaut.

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More Roast Chicken Recipes:

✽ Roast Chicken (you can't go wrong with a classic)
✽ Roast Chicken Steeped with Port Wine, Cream, and Mushrooms (perfect for mushroom lovers)
✽ Mushroom Stuffing (another really great roast chicken stuffing)
→ Check out all of the completed Julia Child chicken recipes!

✽ You can find this recipe and all the other Julia Child recipes I make in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I (affiliate link).
→ Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I was written by Julia Child who co-authored with Simone Beck & Louisette Bertholle and was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961.

✽ Check out my Julia Child Recipe Checklist to see a list of all my completed and pending recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking!

Bon appétit!

April 18, 2019 by Laura Ehlers

*This Poulet Roti a la Normande blog post may contain some Amazon affiliate links. These link to products that I personally use and recommend. If you purchase anything using my links, it will not cost you anything. It will though give laurathegastronaut.com some financial support which helps me keep this blog running. Thank you for reading my blogs and your continued support.