No. 1900

Chickens a la Stanley—Sauted

Poulets Sautes a la Stanley

Select three chickens each one weighing two pounds and a half; draw, singe, and detach the legs from the bodies, cut the carcasses on a level with the breasts and plunge these for a few moments in hot water to stiffen them, then dip them at once in cold water to refresh, lard them with lardons (No. 3, Fig. 52). With the meat taken from the legs and all the parings prepare a quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), finishing it with a dash of cayenne pepper, and two tablespoonfuls of bechamel (No. 409). Butter eighteen hollow tartlet molds with rounded bottoms, besprinkle the insides with finely chopped raw truffles, and fill them up with the prepared forcemeat; range these in a sautoir having boiling water around and reaching up to half their height, then poach the forcemeat slowly. Besides this, poach a layer of the same forcemeat on an entree dish and keep it warm. Cut the breasts of the chickens into three pieces, two fillets and the upper part of the breast; suppress the pinions. Mince ten ounces of white onions, and fry them slowly with butter in a sautoir, and when a good color, add the chickens; season with salt and pepper, and moisten with three gills of chicken broth prepared with the carcasses and bones of these chickens; cover the sautoir and allow the liquid to fall to a glaze, then begin the operation again until the fillets and breasts are thoroughly done; remove and transfer to a flat saucepan; increase the chicken stock with a few spoonfuls of good veloute (No. 415), reduce this sauce without ceasing to stir, incorporating more of the broth into it, and lastly a gill of good raw cream; the sauce should now be succulent and of a medium consistency; thicken it with a liaison of two egg-yolks, and cook this without boiling, then strain it through a tammy into another saucepan to work it vigorously while adding butter; finish with a dash of cayenne pepper, and the juice of a lemon. At the last moment dress the fillets in a circle on the bed of forcemeat laying on the dish; fill the center of this with cut up cooked mushrooms, and place the breast pieces on top; cover over with a part of the sauce, pouring the remainder into a sauce-boat to be served separately. Unmold the small forcemeat molds, dress them around the fillets and glaze over with a brush, then serve.

← No. 1899 Chickens a la Sanford—Sauted Chicken No. 1901 Chickens a la Tunisian—Sauted →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a Delmonico's kitchen recipe written for cooks who already had béchamel, velouté and quenelle forcemeat standing by, and it leans on four cross-references. Read the whole thing before starting and decide which components you will make from scratch.

The hinge: the liaisonThe finishing sauce is thickened with two egg yolks and must be held below a simmer, roughly 175-180F, or it will curdle and the tammy straining will not save it. Take the pan off direct heat before the yolks go in, and mount the butter off the heat as well.
Gills and quantitiesA gill here is half a cup, so three gills of broth is 1 1/2 cups and the cream is 1/2 cup. Ten ounces of onion is about two medium onions, which is a lot for three small birds and is intentional -- the onion is the point of the dish.
Chicken sizeA 2 1/2 lb chicken in 1894 is smaller than anything sold now. Two supermarket birds of 3 1/2 to 4 lb give roughly the same yield of breast meat and leg meat for the forcemeat.
SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan with a lid, not a deep casserole. The repeated reduction to a glaze depends on a wide surface, so use the largest pan the breasts will fit in without stacking.
Poaching the forcemeatTartlet molds set in boiling water reaching halfway up is a bain-marie; keep the water at a bare tremble, around 180F, and the quenelle mixture will set in 12-15 minutes rather than souffle and split.
Truffles and lardonsChopped raw truffle lining the molds can be replaced with finely minced mushroom or a small amount of truffle paste, with an honest loss of aroma. The larding of the breast pieces can be skipped; if you do skip it, keep the pieces covered while they cook.
Breast timing"Thoroughly done" by period standards overcooks modern breast. Take the fillets out as soon as they reach a safe 165F internal and let the sauce reduction continue without them, or they will be dry by the time the dish is dressed.
YieldAbout six servings as a main course, with eighteen small forcemeat molds working out to three per plate.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what came out of the Delmonico's kitchens in New York during his long tenure as chef, and it reads like a working file rather than a book for home cooks -- numbered recipes that call on other numbered recipes, in the manner of the French professional tradition Ranhofer trained in. A garnish "a la Stanley" is generally identified with onion cooked pale in butter, cream and mushroom, sometimes with curry, and the name is traditionally said to honor the explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who was much in the American press in the 1870s and 1890s; the attribution is customary rather than documented. What is clear is the structure Ranhofer is working in: the bird is broken down and every part used, the legs and trimmings becoming forcemeat, the carcasses becoming the broth that moistens the saut o the table as fillets, quenelles and sauce. The repeated reduction to a glaze -- moisten, cover, cook down, moisten again -- is something like what is often called etuver, a way of building concentrated flavor in a covered pan.