No. 1850

Chicken Fillets or Breasts a la Patti

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet a la Patti

Raise the large fillets from six young, two pound chickens that are quite fleshy, suppress the skin and epidermis; remove the minion fillets and from them the nerves and skin; streak these with red beef tongue. Cut an incision through one side of the large fillets without detaching the parts; turn over so that the cut part is now outside; fill in the inside with quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), into which incorporate some foies-gras pressed through a sieve; make the fillet oval-shape like an egg, and lay the streaked minion fillet along the top of it. Place in a buttered sautoir, cover each fillet with a thin slice of fat pork, and cook in a moderate oven. Prepare a cream forcemeat (No. 75) border decorated with pistachios; poach, unmold, and dress with the fillets or breasts over, garnishing with favor frills (No. 10); fill the inside of this border with very thick, well buttered chicken puree (No. 713), into which add half the same quantity of rice boiled in almond milk (No. 4). Garnish around with sliced truffles heated in a little meat glaze (No. 402), butter and Madeira, and serve with a sauce-boatful of supreme sauce (No. 547).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a larder of standing preparations, so half the recipe is cross-references. Stripped down, this is a stuffed, barded chicken breast baked gently and set on a poached forcemeat ring filled with chicken purée and rice.

The hinge: gentle heatA boned, stuffed breast wrapped in fat pork wants a moderate oven, roughly 325-350F, and because the centre is raw forcemeat the fillets should reach 165F at the middle of the stuffing, not just the meat. Ranhofer's fat covering is there to keep the surface from browning or drying; the fillets are meant to stay pale and moist, not roasted.
Minion fillets and epidermisThe filet mignon of a chicken is the tenderloin lying under the breast. "Epidermis" here means the thin translucent membrane over the muscle, which shrinks and toughens if left on.
Streaking with tongueTo "streak" is to inlay: slip thin slivers of cooked red beef tongue into shallow incisions cut in the surface of the tenderloin so it shows stripes. Cured tongue from a deli works; the effect is decorative and can be skipped without harming the dish.
SautoirA shallow straight-sided sauté pan, not a covered casserole. Any low ovenproof pan of the same size will do; the fillets should sit in a single layer without touching.
Fat porkSheets of fresh pork back fat, sliced thin, are the intended barding. Fatback from a butcher is closest; unsmoked salt pork blanched to draw out salt is acceptable. Smoked bacon is not, as its flavour overwhelms the foie gras.
The forcemeat borderNo. 75 is a cream forcemeat, essentially a chicken mousseline of pounded raw breast and cream, piped or spread into a ring mould with pistachios set in the pattern, then poached gently in a water bath until just set. It will collapse if boiled.
Almond milkRanhofer's No. 4 is almond milk made by pounding blanched sweet almonds with water and straining. Unsweetened commercial almond milk is a fair substitute; sweetened is not, since the rice is a savoury bind for the chicken purée.
Favor frillsPaper cutlet frills, purely ornamental, slipped over the exposed end of each fillet. Omit them and nothing is lost but the nineteenth century.
YieldSix two-pound chickens give twelve large fillets, so figure six generous portions or twelve as part of a longer menu. The carcasses and legs are the obvious source of the chicken purée and the stock for the supreme sauce.

A Little History

The name honours Adelina Patti, the Spanish-born Italian soprano who was among the highest-paid performers of the late nineteenth century and a frequent presence in New York during her American seasons. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's across much of the period between 1862 and 1896, though not continuously — he left in the 1870s and later returned — routinely named dishes for the singers, actors and financiers who ate in his rooms, and The Epicurean (1894) preserves a whole roster of them; the attributions record who mattered in that dining room rather than any invention by the honoree. The construction is standard grande cuisine of the period: a boned breast turned inside out, stuffed with quenelle forcemeat enriched with foie gras, presented inside a moulded ring of poached mousseline and finished with truffle and Madeira. Such garnished, architectural service belongs to the era of dining à la russe in restaurants with large brigades, when a single course could depend on five or six preparations made earlier in the day.