No. 1047

Mussels a la Poulette

Moules a la Poulette

Prepare the mussels as for No. 1045; cut two ounces of onions into one-eighth of an inch pieces and cook them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, not letting them attain a color, moisten with a pint and a half of veloute sauce (No. 415), and a small part of the mussel broth; reduce this sauce with mushroom parings added, strain it through a tammy, and thicken with a thickening of egg-yolks diluted with a little of the broth, and fine butter; cook this thickening without allowing it to boil, stirring it steadily; season to taste and serve.

← No. 1046 Mussels a la Mariniere Mussels No. 1048 Mussels a la Villeroi →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a kitchen that already has velouté standing by and a cook who knows what "prepare as for No. 1045" means. Both need filling in, and the egg-yolk finish is where the dish is won or lost.

The hinge: the liaison must not boilOnce the egg yolks go in, hold the sauce below a simmer — roughly 170–180F — and stir without stopping. A single boil curdles the yolks and the sauce breaks into grains that no amount of whisking will bring back.
Preparing the musselsNo. 1045 is not reproduced here; in practice this means scrub, debeard, discard any that stay open when tapped, then steam in a covered pan with a little wine or water until they gape, three to five minutes. Pull them from the shells as they open rather than cooking the whole pot to the same point, or the first ones turn to rubber.
The broth carries gritLet the steaming liquor settle and decant it, or strain through a coffee filter or muslin. Mussel sand is fine enough to pass an ordinary sieve and it will ruin an otherwise finished sauce.
Velouté (No. 415)A white roux moistened with veal or chicken stock, simmered and skimmed until it coats. A pint and a half is about 3 cups. A good chicken-stock velouté made fresh works; a thin béchamel does not, being milk-based and flatter.
TammyA tammy is a worsted straining cloth, wrung between two people to force sauce through. A fine chinois, or a sieve lined with damp muslin, does the same job.
Mushroom paringsTrimmings, peelings and stalks, added to the reducing sauce for flavour and then strained out. A handful of chopped chestnut mushroom stems is the practical equivalent.
"Fine butter"Good fresh butter, which in the text goes into the thickening along with the yolks and broth rather than being added separately at the end. Keep the sauce below a boil after it is in.
SaltSeason last. Mussel liquor is already saline, and the sauce concentrates as it reduces, so a sauce salted early will finish too salty.
YieldThe recipe specifies no quantity of mussels or servings. As a rough guide, three cups of sauce will coat something in the order of 4 lb of mussels in the shell. Lemon and chopped parsley are a common finish for poulette dishes, though Ranhofer does not call for them here.

A Little History

À la poulette is one of the old French sauce names built on a velouté finished with an egg-yolk-and-butter liaison, sharpened with lemon — the same treatment given to tripe, sweetbreads, calf's feet and mushrooms in nineteenth-century kitchens; the name is generally traced to poule, the sauce being originally bound and often stocked with fowl. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full working system rather than a book of separate dishes, which is why this entry is three lines of cross-references: the mussels are to be prepared as for No. 1045, the velouté is at No. 415, and the reader is expected to have both to hand. Mussels reached American restaurant menus far more slowly than oysters, which were cheap and everywhere, and their appearance here — flanked by marinière and Villeroi — reflects the French repertoire Delmonico's imported wholesale rather than any strong native appetite for them.