Persnickety. The secret ingredient of French Cuisine.

—Roddy Louther puts a free range chicken under a duvet in celebration of the coming winter.

— France’s most celebrated chef is a famously fastidious old sod. Perhaps unsurprisingly so, for Monsieur Paul Bocuse has three Michelin Stars to his name and the culinary world’s most sought after award, the Bocuse D’Or. A nose so finely shaped it fits into the smallest Champagne flute, lets him smell a Ratatouille burning in Paris, from his restaurant in Lyon. From lips wrought from 40 years of dragging over tasting spoons, Monsieur Bocuses’ scorn rules the culinary world.

I will never forget being flabbergasted reading through one of his many Bresse chicken recipes. He describes precisely how this noble bird (no other breed will do) should have been raised, what it should have been eating, and to get ridiculous about it, the town and which side of the river it should be from. Then, in typical Bocuse style, he insists: “if you cannot procure this chicken, abandon any plans of recreating this dish, as it will have no chance of being any good.”

But Monsieur Bocuse is not unique — this seems to be a general French quirk. I am blessed to have experienced, first hand, the French’s persnickety nature when it comes to food. During a visit to my ex-wife’s family in Villebon-sur-Yvette, a quaint village south of Paris, her aunt Lise woke me early one Sunday morning, inviting me to go ‘grocery shopping’. I wished she hadn’t — the night before, her husband and I, drank our way from Alsace to Bordeaux via Languedoc. So, the idea of pushing a shopping trolley was absurd.

Lise drove much faster than my comfort zone allowed. Soon we were in the countryside. She seemed to know everyone and vice versa, even the cows in the meadows got a honk and a friendly wave. What a wonderful human being, she was! We finally arrived at a sun-kissed chateau, reminiscent of a dreamy Monet-esque landscape. It had flakey off-white walls, large windows with blue shutters and a door set uneasily in a giant fuscia petaled Bougainvillea frame with creepy tentacles dragging on the terracotta roof.

Around the traumatised chateau, resplendent with plants and weeds in bloom, birds and chickens were everywhere — their tweeting and clucking mixing melodically. Off to the side, a small farm stall provided fresh milk and butter, cured meats and half a dozen magnificently marbled rib-eye steaks. Although Lise tried to introduce us, the gangly, boney-faced farmer was concentrating very hard on ignoring me— as they sometimes do. After an excited exchange, with many a “Oui, oui”, he disappeared.

Lise led me past a large pen with oak trees, where the farmer was in a life or death struggle with an enormous chicken. In the rest of the pen, life went on serenely. We entered another coop and collected eggs from under chickens. Back at the shop, the farmer was plucking the last feathers from our chicken. Its skin was glowing gold, its comb bright red and feet a vibrant blue. The penny dropped, Le Tricolor! Voila!

On return, Lise treated me to a lesson in chicken husbandry and the virtues of free-range vis-à-vis battery reared chickens. She nauseated me with facts about antibiotics and hormones, scared the life out of me with a list of diseases, then sent me on a guilt trip about the loveless conditions inside a battery. I decried my undiscerning, bloody culinary appetite and decided my body is a temple and that eating bad chicken is as bad as smoking cigarettes.

My point is this: be persnickety, like Lise, the ungainly farmer, and Monsieur Bocuse. We will all eat better, be healthier, sleep better and hopefully live longer.

Most Supermarkets stock free-range chickens, promising tasty, healthy dishes that’ll keep your conscience lily-white. Birds are raised and slaughtered to the very highest standards. This will please Lise, and once roasted with herbs and lemon zest — like she did, should get an approval from Monsieur Bocuse.

Since we are in the grips of winter and this is our magazine’s ‘Sleep Well’ issue, I decided to add a layer of seduction. The ingredients are few, and you don’t need the skills of a surgeon — the quivering, wandering hands of a lover will do just fine.

‘Poulet sous la Couette’

SERVES: 4 hungry adults

PREP TIME: 1 hour

INGREDIENTS

1 LARGE FREE-RANGE CHICKEN

1 LEMON (THE ZEST OF)

1 LARGE SPRIG OF ROSEMARY

100G SALTED BUTTER (AT ROOM TEMPERATURE)

OR 4 TBS EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER

FINE SALT

FOR THE STUFFING

½ CUP WILD RICE, COOKED

¼ CUP EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

2 MEDIUM CARROTS, DICED

1 CELERY STALK, DICED

3 FRENCH SHALLOTS, QUARTERED

1 LARGE CLOVE OF GARLIC, FINELY CHOPPED

2 BABY AUBERGINES, DICED

5 MEDIUM BUTTON MUSHROOMS, CHOPPED

FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER

FINE SALT TO TASTE

Pastry

There are many recipes to make puff pastry. But as I am still very nervous when it comes to baking, I bought mine from a bakery. As you can see, the result was spectacular. 2 Free-range egg yolks, beaten lightly

METHOD

For the Stuffing:

1. Heat a frying pan until it’s smoking hot. Pour in a little olive oil. Fry diced carrots and celery until slightly softened. Add the shallots and garlic then pour in the rest of the olive oil before adding the aubergines and mushrooms.
2. Add the cooked rice to the fried vegetables and half the lemon zest. Mix well and season.

For the Chicken:

1. Chop half the lemon zest and rosemary sprig finely. Then grind the mix together with the black pepper in a pestle and mortar. Mix in the butter or olive oil.
2. To relax the chicken, massage the breasts and thighs gently. From the leg end of the chicken, slide your index finger carefully under the skin covering the breasts, until you have two large pockets either side of the breastbone. You do not want to tear the skin. Gently work knobs of the butter mix into the pockets under the skin.
3. Spoon the stuffing into cavity until full. Bind the chickens’ legs together with kitchen twine to protect the filling. Rub the chicken with butter or olive oil then season with the salt and black pepper.
4. Place the chicken, breast side up in a roasting pan in the centre of an oven pre-heated to 220ºC. Roast for 20 minutes. The top should be golden. Turn the chicken over and roast for 15 minutes. Turn the chicken breast side up again and roast another 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow the chicken to rest.
5. After 10 minutes, the chicken would have cooled slightly and the meat will be well rested. Cut the pastry into a square shape, big enough to cover the bird. Drape the puff pastry over the bird imaginatively, tucking it in between the legs. Brush the pastry with the egg yolks and return to the oven for a further 40 minutes until the pastry has turned a glorious golden brown.

TIP

MAKE GRAVY WITH THE JUICES FROM THE ROASTING TRAY, SOME WHITE WINE AND STOCK. THICKEN WITH A LITTLE FLOUR AND BUTTER MIX AND STIR IN A TABLESPOON OF DIJON MUSTARD. SERVE WITH BABY CARROTS AND BEETS, COURGETTES, AUBERGINES AND GREEN BEANS.