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Cutlets of Chicken
Remove fillets from two chickens; for directions, see page 245. Make six parallel slanting incisions in each mignon fillet and insert in each a slice of truffle, having the part of truffle exposed cut in points on edge. Arrange small fillets on large fillets. Garnish with truffles cut in small shapes, and Chicken Force-meat forced through a pastry bag and tube. Place in a greased pan, add one-third cup White Stock, cover with buttered paper, and bake fifteen minutes in a hot oven. Serve with Suprême or Béchamel Sauce.
This is a garnish-driven presentation piece from the professional French repertoire, translated for the American home cook. Almost all the work is in the knife and the pastry bag; the cooking is ten minutes of attention.
- What the fillets areThe "large fillet" is the skinned breast half; the "mignon fillet" is the small tenderloin lying against it, which pulls away with a finger. Two chickens give four of each, so four assembled cutlets; the recipe itself gives no yield. Reserve the rest of the birds for stock or a fricassee.
- Hot ovenRead this as 425-450F. Because the pieces are thin and covered, they are effectively steaming rather than roasting; fifteen minutes is about right, but check for 165F at the thickest point.
- Buttered paperParchment cut to the size of the pan and buttered on the underside. It keeps the surface from drying and stops the forcemeat piping from browning, which is the point of a white entree like this.
- White stockAn unroasted chicken or veal stock, pale and lightly seasoned. A low-sodium commercial chicken broth works; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced, since the liquid ends up under a white sauce.
- TrufflesCanned truffles were the usual commercial article in this period. Canned or jarred whole truffles slice best for the inlay; fresh truffle is a different and far more expensive proposition. Truffle paste and truffle oil will not hold a shape and are not a substitute here.
- Chicken force-meatA cross-reference to the book's own recipe: a quenelle-type mixture, typically raw chicken pounded or ground with egg white and cream. It should be cold when it goes into the pastry bag or it will loosen and weep in the pan.
- The hingeCut the incisions in the tenderloin only partway through and on the slant, so the truffle slices stand up like a comb. If you cut through, the tenderloin falls apart in the pan and the whole effect is lost.
- ServingThe recipe says only to serve with the sauce; sauced under or around keeps the truffle inlay visible. Supreme is a veloute finished with cream, Bechamel a milk-based white sauce, both in this book.
"Cutlet" here has nothing to do with a chop or a cutlet of veal; in late nineteenth-century French service the word had drifted to mean any small, neatly shaped portion presented on a plate as an entree, and English-language cookbooks borrowed it freely. The technique of slitting a fillet and inlaying it with truffle slices so they stand proud of the surface is a classic garnish the French called clout he it appears throughout Escoffier-era restaurant cooking. Its presence in The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book is a reminder that Fannie Farmer's manual was not only about economical household cookery: the Entrees chapter assumes a reader who might be feeding a formal dinner with hired help, and who would recognise a pastry bag, a forcemeat and a supran sauce as ordinary equipment.