No. 1871

Grenades of Chicken a la Ritti

Grenades de Poulet a la Ritti

Pare some chicken fillets, remove the skin and lard with the smallest sized lardons (No. 4, Fig. 52), place them in a sautoir, the bottom covered with thin bardes of fat pork, keeping the pointed ends lying toward the center of the pan; moisten with mirepoix stock (No. 419) and mushroom liquor, then cook on a hot fire and glaze, drain and dress them on croutons the same size and shape. Put the minion fillets in a buttered sautoir after twisting them into ings, fill the centers through a cornet with quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) and on this lay a ball of truffle; cover with a sheet of buttered paper, poach in a slack oven. Dress the grenades in a circle and the minions around, fill the middle with some foies-gras, mixed with allemande sauce (No. 407), glaze the grenades with meat glaze (No. 402).

← No. 1870 Chicken, Medicis—Fried Chicken No. 1872 Jambalaia of Chicken →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A Delmonico's dish built from cross-references, so nearly every step points to another numbered recipe. Read it as an assembly plan: larded and glazed breast fillets, poached rings of tenderloin filled with mousseline, and a foie gras center.

What a grenade is hereNot an explosive but a small, neatly pared fillet larded all over; the name is usually explained as a likeness to the seeds of a pomegranate (grenade), though that derivation is traditional rather than documented. The recipe directs that the pointed ends lie toward the center of the pan.
Minion filletsThe filet mignon of a chicken is the small tenderloin lying under each breast. Ranhofer simply says to twist each into a ring; modern practice would pull the tendon first.
Lardons No. 4The smallest size on Ranhofer's chart of larding strips, drawn through the meat with a larding needle; the book gives the size only by figure, not in measurements. Skinless chicken breast is lean and dries fast, and this is the fat that keeps it from doing so. Thin sheets of fatback (bardes) line the pan for the same reason.
Mirepoix stock and mushroom liquorRanhofer's No. 419 is an aromatic stock built on a mirepoix; a brown chicken stock simmered with diced carrot, onion, celery and a little ham is a reasonable stand-in. Mushroom liquor is the strained soaking or cooking liquid from mushrooms, added for depth rather than bulk.
Slack ovenA low oven, usually reckoned somewhere around 275-300F today; Ranhofer gives no temperature. The forcemeat-filled rings are poached, not roasted, and high heat will split the quenelle mixture. Keep the buttered paper on so the surface never colors.
CornetA cone of paper used as a piping bag. Any small piping bag with a plain tip fills the rings.'
GlazingMeat glaze (No. 402) is stock reduced to a syrupy, tacky glace. Brush it on warm and in thin coats; the shine comes from repeated light passes, not one thick one.
DonenessCook the larded fillets to 165F internal. The original's "cook on a hot fire and glaze" describes fast cooking in a shallow sautoir with the liquid reducing to a glaze; a pared breast fillet needs only a few minutes.
YieldThe recipe specifies no quantities. Scale it by allowing one grenade and one or two minion rings per person and building the circle to suit.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organized less as a cookbook than as a professional reference: numbered items that cite one another, so a single dish like this one silently draws on a stock, a forcemeat, a sauce, a meat glaze and a chart of lardon sizes. Names such as "a la Ritti" attached to garnishes in this period were commonly coined for a patron, a colleague or an occasion, and Ranhofer rarely explains them; the convention mattered more than the person. The construction itself is thoroughly classical French — larded and glazed white meat, a poached mousseline garnish, foie gras bound with allemande — and shows how completely the grand New York restaurant of the Gilded Age worked in the idiom of Carême and his successors, down to the paper cornet.