No. 1882

Chickens with Oyster Sauce

Poulets a la Sauce aux Huitres

Blanch four dozen medium-sized oysters in their own liquor. Bard two small chickens weighing a pound and a half each, after having them singed and trussed; run them one at the time on a slender spit, fasten well by tying the legs with twine and roast in front of a good fire basting over with melted butter; untruss, untie and cut each one either in four or five parts, pare the pieces, dress them pyramid form on a dish and cover with veloute sauce (No. 415), reduced with the oyster liquor and then with fresh cream, buttering the sauce well when off of the fire, add to it the oysters, warm them, and pour the whole over the chickens besprinkling the top with chopped parsley.

← No. 1881 Chicken in the Saucepan—Roasted Chicken No. 1883 Chickens, Tomato Conde Sauce—Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a spit before an open fire, a stock of velouté already made, and oysters by the barrel. All three assumptions need translating, but the dish itself is straightforward: roast small birds, a cream-enriched velouté cut with oyster liquor, and oysters warmed through at the very last moment.

The hinge: the oysters go in off the heatThey are blanched once in their own liquor only until the edges ruffle, perhaps a minute, then held aside. Returned to the finished sauce they need warming, not cooking; a second boil turns them to rubber and clouds the sauce.
Four dozen oystersMedium shucked oysters run roughly 25-40 to the pint depending on grade, so this is somewhere between one and two pints of shucked oysters with their liquor. Save every drop of the liquor; the recipe adds no salt of its own, though the velouté of No. 415 will already be seasoned.
Chickens of a pound and a halfThat is a poussin or a Cornish game hen, not a supermarket broiler. Two hens of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb each serve four; a single 3 1/2 lb chicken cut into eight will work but wants longer roasting and will not carve into the neat pyramid Ranhofer intends.
BardingTying a thin sheet of pork fatback or unsmoked fat bacon over the breast, which keeps small birds from drying on a spit. In a modern oven it is optional; buttered parchment or simply frequent basting does the same work.
Spit to ovenA rotisserie attachment gives the closest result. Otherwise roast at 425F, breast up, basting with melted butter, about 35-40 minutes for birds of this size -- until the thigh joint reads 165F.
Velouté No. 415A blond roux moistened with veal or chicken stock, simmered and strained -- effectively a white sauce built on stock rather than milk. About 2 cups is right here. Reduce it with the oyster liquor first, then with cream, and only then whisk in cold butter with the pan off the flame.
"Pare the pieces"Ranhofer means trimming the cut portions square -- removing ragged skin, wing tips and protruding bone so the pieces stack cleanly. Skip it if you are serving family style.
YieldFour generous servings, or six as part of a longer menu of the kind this book was written for.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summation of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe shows the house style exactly: French technique, French title, and an American quantity of oysters. Chicken with oysters was a genuinely transatlantic pairing in the period -- oyster beds along the Atlantic coast were still yielding enormously, shucked oysters were cheap enough to be a stuffing or a sauce rather than a luxury garnish, and cookbooks on both sides of the ocean used them to enrich poultry the way a later generation would use mushrooms. The barded birds on a slender spit before a good fire are often read as pointing back to an older kitchen than the one Ranhofer actually worked in, though how far he still spit-roasted is not documented; by the 1890s Delmonico's had ranges, but roasting before the fire retained its prestige, and the instruction survives in print into a period when it may well have been receding from everyday practice.