No. 1838

Chicken Fillets or Breasts a la Cussy

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet a la Cussy

Pare twelve chicken fillets being careful to keep the minion fillets aside, beat these large fillets to flatten them, then pare into half hearts, rounded on one side and pointed on the other, season with salt and white pepper. Take the minion fillets, the parings and as much raw chicken meat and with it prepare a cream forcemeat (No. 75), adding to it a quarter as much very fine mushroom puree (No. 722). Pour clarified butter into a sautoir, heat it well and range the chicken fillets on top simply to stiffen on one side only; drain them off leaving the butter in the pan and place the fillets on a baking sheet, one beside the other, cover with buttered paper and let get cold without any pressure, then pare. Cover these fillets with the cream forcemeat, smooth them well rounded on the top and range them once more in the sautoir containing the butter, place them in the oven to finish cooking and to poach the forcemeat; brush them over with butter as soon as the forcemeat becomes sufficiently solid not to have them spoiled, then dress them rosette-shaped on a dish, garnishing each pointed end with a favor frill (No. 10). Serve with a well buttered supreme sauce (No. 547), part of it poured under the fillets and the other part served separately.

← No. 1837 Chicken Fillets or Breasts a la Chiselhurst Chicken No. 1839 Chicken Fillets or Breasts a l'Ecarlate →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot going and a numbered reference for every component. Stripped down, this is seared chicken breasts masked in a chicken mousseline and finished gently in the oven, sauced with suprême.

The hinge: keep the forcemeat coldThe cream forcemeat is a mousseline — raw chicken pounded with egg white and heavy cream — and it will break if it warms while you work. Chill the meat, the bowl and the cream, process in short bursts, and refrigerate the coated fillets before they go in the oven.
Minion filletsThe filet mignon of the breast, sold today as the chicken tender. Twelve breasts yield twelve tenders, which here go into the forcemeat rather than on the plate.
Cream forcemeat and mushroom puréeNo. 75 is Ranhofer's cream forcemeat: raw chicken pounded with egg white, sieved and worked cold with cream; the proportions are given there rather than here. The mushroom purée of No. 722 is mushrooms cooked down and passed through a sieve — closer to a dry paste than to a sauce; too wet and the forcemeat will slacken.
SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan, not a sloped skillet. The flat base lets twelve fillets sit level while they stiffen and again while they bake.
"Simply to stiffen"One side only, in clarified butter, until the surface sets and turns opaque — no colour, no browning. The fillets are meant to finish in the oven under their coating.
Oven temperatureRanhofer gives none; he does not give oven temperatures. Around 325°F suits this; a hot oven will puff and then weep the mousseline. Cook until the coating is firm and springy and the thickest part of the meat reaches 165°F, roughly 15–20 minutes depending on thickness.
Suprême sauceNo. 547 is chicken velouté enriched with cream and mounted with butter. Make it loose enough to pour and finish it off the heat so it does not break.
Favor frillsThe paper cuffs of No. 10, purely decorative and now largely gone from service. Omitting them changes nothing but the silhouette.
YieldTwelve fillets serve six as a main course, or twelve as a single plate within a longer menu.

A Little History

The suffix à la Cussy honours Louis, Marquis de Cussy, prefect of the palace under Napoleon and a gastronomic writer of the early nineteenth century whose name Carême and later chefs attached to a family of refined garnishes, generally involving mushroom heads, truffles and cockscombs. By the time Charles Ranhofer compiled The Epicurean in 1894, after roughly thirty years associated with Delmonico's in New York, such names functioned as shorthand within a codified repertoire: a customer reading "à la Cussy" on a menu was buying a known register of luxury rather than a specific list of ingredients. The construction here — breast pared to a shape, stiffened, masked with a mousseline made from its own trimmings, poached and dressed in a rosette — is characteristic of the period's ambition to serve nothing in the shape it grew in, and of a kitchen large enough that the parings of twelve breasts were a resource rather than scrap.