No. 1855

Chicken Fillets or Breasts a la Valencay

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet a la Toulouse

Pare twelve raw chicken fillets without detaching the minion fillet; cut a gash down the whole length and in the middle of each fillet without separating the parts; turn the meat inside out fill the inside space with a preparation of chopped truffles fried in butter and thickened with meat glaze then allowed to cool off and mix with one egg-yolk. Dip each one of the fillets in veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with cream and when they are quite cold, immerse them in beaten eggs and roll in fresh white bread-crumbs; smooth them shapely with the blade of a knife. At the last moment range the fillets in a sautoir with clarified butter and brown them on both sides over a moderate fire; drain and trim with favor frills (No. 10). Dress in a circle filling the inside space with tomatoes prepared as follows: Cut medium-sized sound and peeled tomatoes into quarters, press out the juice and seeds, then fry then in butter seasoning with a little salt and sugar. Serve a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) with Madeira separately.

← No. 1854 Chicken Fillets or Breasts a la Toulouse Chicken No. 1856 Chicken Fillets or Breasts a la Valerri →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a stocked sauce station; the dish is a stuffed, breaded chicken suprême, and everything hinges on chilling it hard before it is crumbed. Note also that the page heading and the recipe body disagree — the text printed here is No. 1855, à la Toulouse, not the Valençay of No. 1856.

The minion filletThis is the small tenderloin strip lying under the breast, sold today as the chicken tender. Ranhofer specifies that it be left attached when the fillet is pared.
Chill is the hingeThe velouté coating must be set completely cold and firm before the egg-and-crumb stage, or the breading slides off in the pan. An hour uncovered in the refrigerator, or twenty minutes in the freezer, is the practical equivalent of the original's cold larder.
Velouté reduced with creamVeloute reduced with cream -- His No. 415 reduced with cream is close to what later kitchens call sauce supreme: velouté tightened with cream until it coats a spoon heavily. It needs to be thick enough to cling in a layer, closer to a paste than a pouring sauce.
Meat glazeGlace de viande — brown stock reduced to a syrupy, sticky concentrate. Commercial demi-glace or a reduced veal stock concentrate stands in; use it sparingly, as it is intensely salty.
TrufflesTwelve fillets' worth of chopped truffle is a luxury few will match. Duxelles of finely chopped mushrooms cooked dry, with a little truffle oil or a spoonful of preserved truffle peelings, gives a defensible filling; it will not taste the same, and the texture and binding will only approximate the original.
Moderate fire, then ovenBrowning over medium heat colours the crumbs in three or four minutes a side, but a stuffed fillet of this thickness will not be cooked through by then. Finish in a 350F oven until the centre reaches 165F — the filling contains raw egg yolk as well.
Favor frillsPaper cuffs slipped over the bone end of a cutlet, purely decorative and no longer part of service. Omit them without loss.
Half-glaze with MadeiraHis No. 413 is demi-glace; finish it off the heat with a splash of dry Madeira so the wine keeps its aroma. Served separately in a sauceboat, never poured over the breading.
YieldTwelve fillets serves six as a main course, or twelve as one course of a long dinner in the style the book assumes.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its chicken chapter reads like a catalogue of the French garnish system as it stood at the end of the nineteenth century: dozens of near-identical fillets distinguished only by what surrounds them. The name à la Toulouse is generally attached to a white ragoût garnish of cockscombs, kidneys, truffles and quenelles bound in a supreme sauce. The recipe's own navigation prints No. 1856 as "a la Valerri". The mismatch between title and text here may be no more than a page-title artefact; Ranhofer expected a reader who could follow the numbers rather than one reading a single page in isolation.