No. 1841

Chicken Fillets or Breasts a l'Imperatrice

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet Imperatrice

Procure six young chickens each one weighing about a pound and a half; lift off the breasts with the pinions and large fillets attached and suppress all sinews and skin. Chop the fillets on both sides without penetrating through the flesh and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg; dampen the surfaces with egg-white, besprinkle with very finely chopped truffles and over these spread a very thin layer of cream forcemeat (No. 75); dip in fresh bread-crumbs and lay them on a buttered sheet, pour butter over and cook in a hot oven. Make some croustades in half heart-shaped buttered bottomless molds lined with puff paste fragments (No. 149) rolled out thin; line them with buttered paper and fill them with rice and then cook in a moderate oven; when done empty out and fill up with bits of celery cut in quarter-inch dice blanched, cooked in broth and fallen to a glaze, then mingled with veloute sauce (No. 415) and thickened; when ready to use with egg-yolks diluted in cream and a few small pats of butter. Lay the breasts on top of these croustades, trim the pinions with paper frills (No. 10) and serve very hot.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade and a numbered cross-reference system; stripped down, this is stuffed breaded chicken supremes served on pastry cases filled with creamed celery. Two things decide whether it works: the forcemeat layer must be thin enough to cook through in the time the breast needs, and the egg-yolk liaison in the celery filling must never boil.

Oven temperatures"Hot oven" for the breasts is conventionally read as roughly 425-450F, and "moderate oven" as around 350F; Ranhofer gives no figures, so these are approximations. Coated fillets off a pound-and-a-half bird will want fast colour and something in the region of 15-20 minutes, judged by eye. The croustades bake in the cooler oven until the puff paste is dry and set.
Pinion and large filletThe pinion is the first wing joint, left attached so the frill has something to sit on; the "large fillet" is the breast proper, as against the small tenderloin beneath. Modern supremes sold with the wing bone attached are the same cut.
Bird sizeSix chickens at a pound and a half each are small spring birds; each yields two portions of breast, so the dish serves twelve. Using two 3-4 lb supermarket chickens gives four much thicker breasts, which need butterflying or the coating burns before the centre is done.
Chopping the fillets"Chop the fillets on both sides without penetrating through the flesh" means shallow scoring, to hold seasoning and give the egg-white and forcemeat something to grip. It is not mincing the meat.
Cream forcemeatNo. 75 is a pounded raw forcemeat lightened with cream, in effect a quenelle mixture; a food processor does in moments what Ranhofer's mortar did at length. Spread it no more than a few millimetres thick or it will still be raw when the breast is done.
TrufflesFresh black truffle is the intent and the expense; tinned truffle peelings, finely chopped, are a reasonable substitute, and preserved truffles were commercially available in this period. Truffle oil behaves differently under heat and is not a swap here.
Bottomless molds and blind bakingHalf heart-shaped rings on a buttered sheet, lined with paper and filled with rice, are blind baking exactly as done now; plain tart rings or a muffin tin will stand in. Keep the rice and reuse it for blind baking.
The celery fillingQuarter-inch celery dice, blanched, then simmered in broth until the liquid reduces to a glaze, then bound with veloute (No. 415, a white stock sauce thickened with roux). The finishing egg yolks diluted in cream go in off the heat with the butter; taken much above about 180F they will curdle, though the starch in the veloute gives some protection.
Paper frillsNo. 10 is a decorative cuff of folded paper slipped over the exposed wing bone. Purely presentational, and easily left off without touching the cooking.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of that restaurant's repertoire at its height, dish numbers, garnishes, frills and all. Names like a l'Imperatrice belong to the French dedicatory habit of nineteenth-century grande cuisine, honouring an empress in the abstract rather than commemorating a documented occasion; the usage is generally associated with the Second Empire and the court of Eugenie, and by Ranhofer's day it functioned mainly as a signal of richness, typically cream, truffle and a fine forcemeat. The construction here is thoroughly of its period: the meat is not simply cooked but rebuilt in layers, then raised on a pastry plinth holding a separate creamed vegetable, so that a single serving requires three components from three different parts of the book.