No. 1840

Chicken Fillets or Breasts, Chevalet a l'Ecuyere

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet Chevalet a l'Ecuyere

Prepare the large fillets and minion fillets the same as for Harrison (No. 1844), lay them on sheets of tin bent into semicircles three inches by one and a half high, well buttered and maintain both fillets on this mold with wooden skewers run through holes bored in the tin, laying the streaked minion fillets on top of the larger fillets underneath (Fig. 358) baste over with butter and cook in a slow oven. Truss some fine crawfish cooked a la bordelaise, dress them crown-shaped on a dish garnished with a tomato puree (No. 730) and lay the fillets of chickens on top of the crawfish; serve separately a bordelaise sauce (No. 436) made with white wine and having three-sixteenths inch squares of mushrooms added.

← No. 1839 Chicken Fillets or Breasts a l'Ecarlate Chicken No. 1841 Chicken Fillets or Breasts a l'Imperatrice →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a full set of cross-references at hand, so this entry is really an assembly note: the shaping of the fillets is the whole point, and everything else is borrowed from elsewhere in the book. A few things need translating before it is workable.

What a chevalet isThe word means a trestle or easel (also the bridge of a violin). The tin is bent into a semicircular arch about 3 inches long and 1½ inches high, and the fillets are draped over it so they set in a curved, ridged shape as they cook. Any small buttered arch will do the same work — a strip of doubled foil bent over a dowel, or a cannoli form. The skewers pass through holes punched in the tin to hold the meat against the curve.
Large fillet and minion filletThe large fillet is the skinned breast; the filet mignon is the narrow tenderloin strip that lies underneath it. Separate the two and reserve the tenderloin to lie on top.
"Streaked"Elsewhere in the book minion fillets are streaked with fine strips of truffle, and sometimes tongue, set into slits in the surface so they show as stripes when the meat whitens. This entry gives no detail. It is decorative, not structural, and can be skipped or done with truffle alone.
Slow ovenRanhofer gives no temperature; a slow oven is in the region of 300°F. The fillets are basted with butter and meant to stay white — no browning at all. Small breasts of this size will be done in roughly 15 to 20 minutes; take them to 165°F at the thickest point and no further, since there is no fat or skin to protect them.
Crawfish à la bordelaiseWhole crawfish, cooked with mirepoix and white wine, then "trussed" — the tail bent back under the body and fixed with the claws or a small skewer so each one stands up. They are dressed crown-shaped around the dish as a plinth for the chicken. Live crawfish are seasonal; cooked frozen whole crawfish are the practical substitute and only need reheating in the wine.
The saucesTwo separate elements: a tomato purée spooned into the dish under the crawfish crown, and a bordelaise served in a boat. Note that Ranhofer specifies the white-wine bordelaise, not the red-wine version most cooks now mean by the name; here it is finished with mushrooms cut in neat squares of about ½ cm (three-sixteenths inch).
YieldNo quantity is given. Reckon one moulded fillet (large fillet with its minion fillet on top) and two or three crawfish per person.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that house's repertoire, which is why entries like this one read as shorthand between professionals rather than instructions for a household. The name is built from two borrowed words of the kind that fill the book: chevalet is a trestle or the bridge of a violin, and à l'écuyère belongs to the riding school. The pairing of chicken breast with crawfish and a bordelaise sauce points to the Gascon and Bordeaux end of French cooking, where crawfish were a standard luxury garnish, and Ranhofer uses them freely. The section around this recipe is a run of breast preparations distinguished only by garnish and sauce. Across ten or twelve courses, the interest lay in variation rather than in any one dish carrying the meal.