No. 1875

Chickens' Legs As Cutlets with Olives

Cuisses de Poulet en Cotelettes aux Olives

Take the legs of six young chickens; bone them keeping on part of the drumsticks, but do not open; suppress well the sinews, season and stuff with chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) and fine herbs (No. 385); sew them up with coarse thread, leaving them in their original shape, range them in a flat saucepan one beside the other, salt over lightly, moisten just to cover with stock (No. 194a) and lay a piece of buttered paper on top, then cook the whole very slowly. Drain off the legs, and let cool between two boards or in the press (Fig. 71), pressing them down lightly; unsew and pare all around and on the ends, season and then dip in beaten eggs and bread-crumbs Range them one beside the other in a flat sauce-pan with melted butter, return them to a hot fire and brown slightly on one side, then reverse them and brown them on the other. Drain and trim each drumstick with a small paper frill (No. 10); dress in a circle on a hot dish and fill the inside with an olive garnishing (No. 695), made with either verdal or Lucques olives, and serve with a sauce-boat of Colbert sauce (No. 451).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer builds this from five other numbered recipes, so the work is mostly in the components. The dish is a cold-set, breaded, pan-fried stuffed chicken leg — essentially a croquette that keeps its own bone as a handle.

The hinge: tunnel-bone, do not butterfly"Do not open" is the whole trick. Work the thigh bone out from the cut end with a boning knife and your fingers, leaving the skin a closed pouch so the forcemeat cannot escape during poaching. Leave the lower half of the drumstick bone in place as the handle.
What the cross-references areNo. 89 is Ranhofer's chicken quenelle forcemeat, No. 385 his fine herbs, and No. 194a one of his stocks; the page does not give their composition, so those numbers have to be consulted. Any well-made chicken mousseline forcemeat works.
"Flat saucepan"A wide sauté pan or shallow braiser, deep enough to hold the legs in a single layer and just cover them. The buttered paper is a cartouche, keeping the tops from drying above the liquid line.
"Cook the whole very slowly"Poach, never simmer: hold the stock at 165–175F. A boil bursts the skin and squeezes the forcemeat out. Twenty-five to thirty-five minutes depending on size; the stuffing should read 165F on a thermometer, since it is raw chicken.
The pressFig. 71 is a cook's press, but two small boards or sheet pans with a light weight do the same job. Chill the legs fully under pressure — several hours or overnight. Cold, firm legs bread cleanly and hold their shape in the pan; warm ones fall apart.
Browning in butterWhole butter over a "hot fire" will blacken before the crumbs colour. Use clarified butter, or butter cut with a neutral oil, over medium-high heat, and count on two to three minutes a side — the interior is already cooked, so this is colour only.
The olivesVerdal and Lucques are southern French green varieties, and Lucques is not widely exported. Picholine or Castelvetrano stand in well. No. 695 is Ranhofer's olive garnishing, given at that number; the olives are dressed as a garnish rather than used brine-straight from the jar.
Colbert sauceRanhofer gives it at No. 451. In its classical form it is meat glaze and butter finished with lemon juice and chopped tarragon, with Madeira in some versions. Make it last and keep it barely warm so it does not separate.
YieldTwelve legs from six chickens serves six as a course, two per person, dressed in a ring on a warm platter with the olives heaped in the centre. Paper frills (No. 10) are decorative; skip them without loss.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is a working restaurant book rather than a household one. Boning, stuffing, poaching, pressing and crumbing a chicken leg so it can be picked up by its own drumstick belongs to the nineteenth-century French repertoire of cuisses en cotelettes, dishes shaped to resemble a neater cut than they are; the technique is close to that behind the modern ballotine. The named olive varieties point back to Provence and the Languedoc, and their appearance on a Manhattan menu suggests how much Delmonico's imported to keep its cooking recognisably French.