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Petits Soufflées à la Henri IV
(Little Souffles of Chicken.) Ingredients.
Three ounces of cooked Chicken Mcat.
One ounce and a half of Butter.
One ounce and a half of Flour.
One gill and a half of good White Stock.
Three Whites and two Yolks of Eggs.
A small Truffle.
A teaspoonful of Lemon Juice.
Eight large preserved Mushrooms.
A little cooked Ham or Tongue.
Breadcrumbs. Salt, Pepper and Cayenne.
G Melt the butter in a small stewpan; add the flour and stir until cooked, but do not let it get brown; add the stock and let it boil; add the yolks of eggs, and stir over the fire until the mixture is thoroughly blended. Chop the chicken meat (freed from gristle and skin) very fine; stir it into the mixture, with one ounce of lean ham; now add the lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cayenne; beat up the whites of eggs to a stiff froth and mix with the above. Fill up some soufflée cases, place a mushroom on top of each, ornament with a little truffle, sprinkle over with a few breadcrumbs, bake in a moderately heated oven for about ten minutes, and serve quickly.
A panada-based savoury soufflé, closer to a hot chicken mousse than to the airy dessert kind. Everything can be made ahead except the whites, which go in at the last second.
- The hingeThe yolks are stirred into boiling sauce over direct heat, which will scramble them if the pan is hot. Pull the panada off the fire, let it stop bubbling, then beat the yolks in; return it only briefly, if at all.
- A gill and a halfA gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, so this is 7½ fl oz — a scant cup. With 1½ oz each of butter and flour the result is a very stiff panada, and it should be: it has to carry the whites.
- Moderately heated ovenA moderate oven, in modern terms somewhere around 350°F. Ten minutes is right for small cases; the tops should be set and just coloured, with the centres still creamy.
- Preserved mushroomsBottled or tinned button mushrooms in brine, drained and patted dry. Fresh ones sautéed in butter until their water has gone will do, but they must be dry or they weep into the soufflé.
- TruffleUsed here purely as a black ornament cut into small shapes. A thin sliver of fresh or preserved truffle is the article; black olive is the usual honest substitute if you are not spending the money.
- Soufflée casesSmall ramekins or the pleated paper cases of the period, buttered, about 2½ inches across. Fill them level rather than heaped — this mixture rises modestly.
- Ham or tongueAn ounce of lean ham goes into the mixture; the tongue is the alternative, not an addition. Chop it as fine as the chicken or it reads as gristle.
- YieldEight small soufflés, matching the eight mushrooms. A savoury course or a light first course, not a main.
Dishes tagged à la Henri IV nod to the French king whose name became attached, by tradition, to the promise of a chicken in every subject's pot; what the label meant by the late nineteenth century varied from book to book. The technique here — a thick flour-and-butter panada bound with yolks, enriched with pounded or finely chopped meat, then lightened with beaten whites — is a standard Victorian professional route to a savoury soufflé, and the same base served for game, ham, lobster and cheese with only the flavouring changed. Small individual cases mattered: a savoury soufflé was expected to arrive at the table still risen, and a single large one gave the kitchen no margin. Books of this kind were written for cooks in service in large households, which is why the recipe assumes cooked chicken, good white stock and bottled mushrooms are already to hand rather than telling anyone how to get them.