No. 1859

Chicken Fillets or Breasts, Mexican Style, in Papers

Filets ou Ailes de Poulet a la Mexicaine en Papillotes

Remove the fillets from six fine medium-sized chickens; pare them leaving on the pinions and skin, then saute them, and when done wrap them up in a matignon with white wine (No. 406), adding peeled tomatoes cut in eight pieces, fried in butter and seasoned with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley. Prepare some sheets of paper heart-shaped and well oiled; place on one half a little of the cooked matignon, the tomatoes, some risot (No. 739) and fried sweet peppers; lay one of the breasts or fillets on top and cover with more of the ingredients, then close by pinching the two edges together all around and lay them on a buttered dish; place in a hot oven to heat the contents and color the paper; serve immediately.

← No. 1858 Chicken Fillets or Breasts au Supreme Chicken No. 1860 Chicken Fillets or Breasts with Cucumbers →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows what a matignon and a risot are, and assumes cross-references to other numbered recipes. Translated into a home kitchen, this is a straightforward papillote: cooked chicken breast sealed in paper with a wine-braised vegetable garnish, tomato, rice and peppers, then heated through just long enough to puff and brown the paper.

The hinge: the chicken is already cookedThe fillets are sautéed to doneness before they go in the paper. The oven stage exists only to heat the parcel and color it, so it should be short. Treat the sauté as the cooking step and pull the breasts at 160-165F internal; anything longer in the paper dries them.
Matignon (No. 406)A matignon is a fine dice of carrot, onion, celery and a little raw ham or bacon, stewed in butter until soft and finished with white wine. Unlike a mirepoix it is meant to be eaten rather than strained out. Ranhofer gives no quantity here; about 2 cups of small dice is enough for six portions.
Risot (No. 739)Ranhofer's spelling of risotto: rice cooked in butter and broth, usually with onion and grated cheese. It goes into the paper already cooked and fairly firm, since it will steam further in the parcel.
Fillets and pinionsA chicken fillet here is the boneless breast; "leaving on the pinions" means the first wing joint is left attached, the old winged supreme. A butcher will cut this for you, or use plain boneless breasts. Six chickens yield twelve fillets; the recipe gives no serving count, so that is twelve portions of one, or six of two.
Sweet peppersNineteenth-century "sweet peppers" means mild capsicum generally; bell peppers are a reasonable stand-in. Ranhofer already specifies them fried: cook strips in butter or oil until limp first, as raw pepper will not soften in the few minutes the parcel spends in the oven.
Paper and oilUse parchment rather than kitchen paper, cut as a heart and folded over the filling with the edges crimped in overlapping pleats. Oil or butter both faces so the paper releases cleanly and browns instead of scorching. Foil will seal but will not puff or color, which is the whole visual point.
A hot ovenRoughly 425-450F. Around eight to ten minutes should be enough for the paper to balloon and take on color; Ranhofer says only to serve immediately.
Peeled tomatoesScore, blanch thirty seconds and slip the skins off, then cut in eighths and fry briefly in butter with salt, pepper and parsley. Drain them well before they go into the parcel, or the paper will go soggy and split.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is essentially French haute cuisine with an American address book. Cooking en papillote was already an established French technique by the time he wrote, valued for sealing in aroma and for the theater of the puffed, browned paper being slit open in front of the diner. The "Mexicaine" label in this period generally signals tomatoes and sweet peppers rather than anything from a Mexican kitchen; a nineteenth-century French menu used such national tags loosely, as shorthand for a garnish, much as "portugaise" indicated tomato or "milanaise" a pasta garnish with ham and tongue. The matignon is conventionally said to take its name from the French house of Matignon, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented; by Ranhofer's day it was a standard item of the professional repertoire, listed under its own number so it need never be written out twice.