No. 1858

Chicken Fillets or Breasts au Supreme

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet au Supreme

Select six medium chickens of two pounds each, remove the large fillets, also their skin and epidermis; pare these into half hearts and range in a buttered sautoir; on top of the thickest part of these lay the minion fillet in a half circle after it has been scored; pour over butter and the juice of a lemon, cover with a buttered paper and cook in a hot oven. Set some superme sauce (No. 547) and chicken glaze (No. 389) in a sautoir and just when ready to serve stir in fresh butter, cream and six ounces of peeled and sliced truffles. Trim all the fillets with favor frills (No..10) and dress them in a circle filling in the inside with the sliced truffles and sauce. Serve a sauce-boat of supreme sauce (No. 547) at the same time.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stock, glaze and sauce already standing on the range, so the work here is mostly butchery and timing. Two things decide the dish: cutting the fillets cleanly and pulling them from the oven before they dry.

What the two fillets areThe "large fillet" is the breast lobe; the "minion fillet" (filet mignon) is the small tenderloin that lies beneath it. Six two-pound birds give twelve of each, enough for six to twelve plates depending on how the rest of the menu runs. Buying whole boneless breasts with the tenders attached gets you to the same place.
Skin and epidermisAfter the skin comes off there is a thin translucent membrane over the meat; that is the "epidermis," and it shrinks and toughens if left on. Pull it away with a paper towel for grip. "Pare into half hearts" simply means trimming each lobe to a tidy rounded wedge.
Sautoir and buttered paperA sautoir is a shallow straight-sided saute pan, ovenproof, not a covered casserole. The buttered paper is a cartouche laid directly on the meat so the fillets steam gently in butter rather than browning.
Hot oven, short timeRanhofer gives no temperatures; "hot" means a brisk oven, usually rendered today as somewhere in the 400-450F range. Skinless fillets of this thickness need only 8 to 12 minutes at that heat; take them at 160-165F in the thickest part and let them rest. The original assumes a cook watching the pan, not a timer.
Score the minionScoring the tenderloin before curving it over the breast keeps it from contracting into a knot as it sets. Shallow cuts across the grain are enough.
The saucesSauce supreme (No. 547) is a chicken velouté enriched with chicken glaze (No. 389) is heavily reduced chicken stock, what is sold now as glace de volaille (not demi-glace, which is veal-based and brown). The butter and cream go in off the boil, at the last moment, or the sauce can break and lose its gloss.
Six ounces of trufflesThat quantity of peeled black truffle was ordinary in a Delmonico's kitchen and is not ordinary now. Sliced sautéed mushrooms with a few drops of truffle oil will not be the same dish, but it will be a coherent one; avoid the tinned "summer truffle," which contributes colour and nothing else.
Favor frillsThe paper frills of No. 10 are decoration, most often clipped to a bone end. Ranhofer clearly fixed them to these boneless fillets somehow, but the instruction is period stagecraft and can be skipped.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house style plainly: French classical technique, cross-referenced sauces, and an ingredient list priced for Fifth Avenue. "Supreme" does double duty in the title, naming both the breast fillet of a bird and the sauce suprême, the cream-and-butter finish of a chicken velouté that was one of the central preparations of nineteenth-century French cooking. Dressing the fillets in a ring around a filling was a common en couronne presentation of the period. Ranhofer's calling for six chickens to obtain twelve fillets is a reminder that a restaurant kitchen of this size had a constant use for the legs, carcasses and trimmings, which went into the very stock and glaze this recipe calls back to by number.