Roast Rooster

Last night, we pulled The Ultimate Cook Book off the shelf and cooked up a capon--aka, a gelded rooster. Poor boy. He lost his balls at an early age because there was already another cock on the walk. (Easy, easy pun.) And so our de-cojones-ed kid plumped up like a castrato--thus to become one of life's more exquisite pleasures.

A capon is a great roast: moist but meaty, not as fatty as a chicken, not as dry as a turkey. Don't get me wrong: I love roast chicken. But the meat can get a little, well, soft. And in all honesty, it's the skin I adore. With a capon, I get it all: perfect skin, firm meat.

So here we go: a roasted ball-less rooster stuffed with potatoes and sauerkraut.

How can any recipe be bad if it starts with bacon? Bruce fried up 6 ounces diced slab bacon in a couple teaspoons of canola or vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat until the bacon was crispy and down-right irresistible.

While the bacon was getting really good, I peeled 1 pound red-skinned potatoes and cut them into 1/2-inch cubes. I put these in a big bowl, covered them with cool water, and set them aside for 10 minutes so they'd leach some of their starch into the water (starch that could turn the stuffing gummy).

After Bruce transferred the bacon from the skillet to a big bowl with a slotted spoon, I drained the potatoes and dumped them into the rendered bacon fat in the skillet. Bruce then cooked the little spud cubes, stirring often, until they were well browned on all sides, maybe about 5 minutes. He scooped them out with a slotted spoon and dumped them in the bowl with the bacon bits. (And he left the bacon fat in the skillet sitting at the back of the stove. You'll see why in a minute.)

Meanwhile, I rinsed and squeezed dry about 1 pound packaged sauerkraut. I stirred it into to the bowl with the potatoes and bacon. Canned sauerkraut? Blech! I used the good stuff sold in the plastic bags at our supermarket's deli case. But I'll admit I first rinsed it off because it's loaded with sodium--and the bacon's already got a good dose on its own.

Finally, I stirred in 1/2 teaspoon mild paprika and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper--and that's the stuffing. No eggs, so no worries.

Bruce then set the rack in the middle of the oven and heated it up to 350F. He stuffed the sauerkraut mixture into a 6- to 7-pound capon (having removed any gibblets and the neck), then used butcher's twine to tie the beast into a neat shape. Basically, he used the "rustic" method rather than the more fancy butcher technique: he just wrapped and tied the string around the body once to secure the wings against the breast meat, and then he wrapped and tied a second piece of twine around the legs to close up the large opening over the stuffing.

He set the whole thing on a roasting rack inside a roasting pan and basted the bird's skin with half the bacon fat in the skillet on the back of the stove. (I believe at this point I quoted Homer Simpson: "Ahhhrrrrggggg.") He covered the bird loosely with foil and roasted it for 1 hour.

Then he uncovered the whole thing, basted the bird with the rest of that bacon fat, and continued roasting the thing, basting it occasionally with pan drippings, until an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the center of the thigh without touching bone registers 165F, about 2 to 2 1/2 additional hours. (This bird took a total of 3 hours last night--1 hour covered and then 2 hours uncovered. But timing is always a range for a host of reasons.) He carved it up, I popped open a bottle of a crisp, Spanish white, and we set in to dinner.

Afterwards, we had the perfect dessert: Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man on TIVO. Wow, was that Henry Fonda sexy, in that I'm-so-depressed-I-don't-have-the-energy-to-give-a-damn way.