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Squab Ballotines
Singe, draw and remove the bones from half a dozen tender squabs, stuff them with a nice chicken forcemeat, and leave on one leg to decorate later with a truffle. Form each squab to a round shape, place them in a buttered sautepan, season with one pinch of salt and half a pinch of pepper, and cover with a piece of buttered paper. Place the pan in the oven for fifteen minutes. When cooked serve wifh one-half pint of hot Italian sauce, laying the squabs on top, with a paper ruffle fastened to each leg. Garnish the dish with watercress.
A classic boned-and-stuffed bird from the Waldorf's à la carte repertoire, written for a brigade that already knew how to bone a squab and had sauce italienne on the stove. The gaps are in technique and temperature rather than in the ingredients.
- The hinge: forcemeat donenessThe fifteen minutes assumes very small birds in a hot professional oven and a chef judging by feel. Because the cavity is packed with raw chicken forcemeat, the stuffing must reach 165F at the centre — check with a probe rather than the clock, and expect 25-35 minutes at 400F for birds of supermarket size.
- SquabA young domestic pigeon, killed before it flies, usually around 12-16 oz dressed. Sold frozen by game suppliers and some butchers; ask for them boned if you would rather not do it yourself.
- "Leave on one leg"Bone out the carcass and the wings but leave one drumstick bone in place. It gives the round ballotine a handle, holds the paper ruffle, and is where the truffle slice is meant to sit against the pale skin.
- Chicken forcemeatA panada-based or cream-bound mousseline of raw chicken breast: roughly 12 oz of meat, an egg white and 6 fl oz cream for six birds, worked cold. Keep everything refrigerator-cold or the emulsion will break in the oven.
- Buttered paperA cartouche — parchment cut to the pan and buttered on the underside. It steams the birds and stops the skin colouring. If you want browned skin, lift it off for the last five minutes.
- Italian sauceSauce italienne: demi-glace with a fine duxelles of mushrooms, chopped lean ham, shallot, white wine and herbs. Half a pint is one cup, which is a generous nappe for six birds rather than a pool.
- Oven heatOscar gives no temperature. 400F is the sensible modern reading here.
- Paper rufflesThe frilled papillotes fastened to the exposed leg bone are decorative only and were standard hotel presentation. They are still sold for crown roasts and lamb chops.
- YieldSix squabs, one per person, as a main course.
A ballotine is a boned piece of meat or poultry rolled or reshaped into a bundle and cooked — the name is generally traced to the French balle, a bale or package — and it is distinguished from a galantine chiefly by being served hot. Small boned birds reformed around a forcemeat were a staple of the grand-hotel kitchen because they solved a service problem: the bones came out in the morning, the stuffing did the work of keeping the flesh moist, and the finished bird could be plated whole and eaten with a fork. Squab appears constantly in American hotel and club cookery around 1900, when domestic pigeon was a farmed luxury sold by the dozen rather than the wild bird of earlier centuries. The paper ruffle, the truffle slice and the fringe of watercress are all pure Escoffier-era plating, meant to be read across a dining room; Oscar Tschirky, who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms rather than its stoves, recorded such dishes as the house served them.