No. 1505

Stuffed Ears, Tomato Sauce

Oreilles Farcies a la Sauce Tomate

Cook three or four small and very clean calves' ears in stock (No. 182); drain and leave them till nearly cold, and when properly wiped, shorten and divide each ear into two parts; pare nicely, season and stuff these halves by covering them over with a thick baking forcemeat (No. 81), mixed with a third of its quantity of veal quenelle forcemeat (No. 92), and a few spoonfuls of cooked fine herbs (No. 385); smooth them down nicely and roll the half ears into white breadcrumbs, dip them in beaten eggs, bread-crumb once more, and plunge into very hot frying fat to brown while heating; drain, salt, and dress them on a folded napkin with fried parsley. A tomato sauce (No. 549) should be served separately.

← No. 1504 Veal Cutlets with Fine Herbs Veal No. 1506 Calves Feet, American Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote for a professional brigade with numbered preparations always on hand, so this entry reads as an assembly note rather than a full recipe. The gaps are all in the cross-references and in one unstated cooking time.

The hinge: cook the ears until fully tenderRanhofer gives no time because a hotel kitchen judged by feel. Calves' ears are cartilage and collagen; they need a gentle simmer of roughly 2 to 3 hours in stock until a skewer meets no resistance and the edges are gelatinous. Underdone ears stay rubbery and no amount of frying will fix them.
SourcingCalves' ears are not a supermarket item. Order from a halal or Latin American butcher, or one who handles whole veal; pig's ears are far easier to find and behave similarly, though they are fattier and stronger in flavour. Scrub and singe off any remaining hair before cooking, which is what Ranhofer means by "very clean."
The numbered referencesNo. 182 is a stock, and any unsalted veal or chicken stock will do. No. 81 is a baking forcemeat, No. 92 a veal quenelle forcemeat and No. 385 cooked fine herbs, as the recipe itself states; their exact compositions have to be looked up in Ranhofer's own numbered entries.
A workable forcemeat substituteFor four ears, about 8 oz of ground veal blitzed smooth with one egg white and 3 tablespoons cream, folded into 4 oz of panade (crustless bread soaked in milk and squeezed) with 2 to 3 tablespoons cooked fines herbes, gives the same thick, spreadable paste. It should hold a shape on a spoon.
Chill before breadingThe stuffed halves must be cold and firm or the forcemeat will slump out of the crumb coating in the fat. Coat, then refrigerate at least 30 minutes before frying.
Frying temperature"very hot frying fat" is best taken in practice as somewhere around 350 to 375F. The filling is raw forcemeat, so the pieces need long enough (roughly 5 to 7 minutes) to reach 160F at the centre, not merely to colour. Fry in batches so the fat does not cool too far.
Fried parsleyDry parsley sprigs thoroughly, then drop into the same fat for 15 to 20 seconds until they stop hissing. Wet parsley will spit violently. The folded napkin was there to absorb fat at table; a wire rack and a warm plate serve better.
YieldThree or four ears halved give six to eight pieces, enough for four as a first course with the tomato sauce passed separately in a sauceboat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's veal chapter is a fair record of how completely nose-to-tail cookery was taken for granted in a nineteenth-century luxury kitchen: ears, feet, head, brains, sweetbreads and mesentery all get their own numbered preparations. Stuffed ears in the French manner, oreilles farcies, are older than Delmonico's and appear in French cookery books of the 1800s, the appeal being textural — long-cooked cartilage turns silky and gelatinous, and the crumb crust supplies the contrast. Serving them on a folded napkin with fried parsley and a sauce apart was characteristic grande cuisine presentation of the period, and tomato sauce was by this date a routine part of the repertoire rather than a novelty. Veal ears have since largely fallen out of Anglo-American use, though pig's ears remain common in Chinese, Spanish and Southern US cooking, prepared on much the same principle.