No. 1957

Guinea Fowls Fillets a la Gaillardet

Filets de Pintades a la Gaillardet

Raise the fillets from half a dozen young guinea fowls, remove the skin and epidermis, and saute them over a brisk fire, but without coloring. Set them under a weight and when partly cold pare them into half hearts, cover with some well-reduced Villeroi sauce (No. 560) and range them as quickly as they are ready on a tin sheet to cool thoroughly. Detach them from this sheet, roll them in bread-crumbs, dip in eggs and again in bread-crumbs, smoothing the breading with the blade of a knife. Fry them in clarified butter to a fine golden brown, drain on a napkin and trim the pointed ends with favor frills (No. 10), then dress in a circle and garnish the center of the dish with tomatoes fried in oil with finely chopped shallots and mushrooms, also some chopped parsley; serve with a separate Colbert sauce (No. 451).

← No. 1956 Guinea Fowls Larded and Decorated with Their Chicken No. 1958 Guinea Fowls with Sauerkraut →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a classic à la Villeroi preparation: cooked meat masked in a stiff sauce, chilled hard, then breaded and fried. Most of the work is in the chilling, not the cooking.

The hinge: chill the sauce coating solidThe Villeroi coating must be reduced thick enough to set firm, and the coated fillets left to cool thoroughly, as the recipe directs, before they go near the fat. If the coating is still soft when it hits the butter it can split and the sauce bleeds out into the pan.
Villeroi sauceNo. 560 is Ranhofer's Villeroi sauce, which in the classic form is a velouté-based allemande reduced with mushroom and truffle essence until it coats a spoon heavily and stiffens when cold. A thick velouté finished with egg yolk, cooked down until a spoon drawn through it leaves a clean track, does the same job.
Colbert sauceNo. 451 is Ranhofer's Colbert sauce; classically a meat glaze loosened with butter, lemon juice and chopped tarragon or parsley — closer to a compound butter sauce than a modern reduction. Serve it warm but never hot enough to break.
"Epidermis"The thin translucent membrane lying over the breast muscle. Peel it off with the skin, or the fillet will curl and toughen as it cooks.
Sauté without coloringCook the fillets in butter over a brisk fire, as the recipe says, but only until firm and opaque and without letting them take any color; time depends on the thickness of the fillet. They are fried again later; browning them now gives you dry meat inside the crust.
Under a weightPressing the warm fillets flat under a weight while they cool gives an even thickness so they coat and fry uniformly. The recipe has you pare them into the "half heart" shape when they are only partly cold.
Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. Take the clarified butter hot enough to bring the breading to a fine golden brown quickly, but not so hot that the crust burns before it sets, nor so cool that the sauce inside melts first.
Favor frillsPaper cutlet frills, purely decorative and skippable. They were fitted over the exposed bone or pointed end for the buffet table.
Birds and yieldSix young guinea fowl give twelve fillets. Guinea fowl is available from game dealers and some butchers; skinless chicken breast supremes behave the same way in this method, if with less flavor.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer worked at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire written out at exhausting length, which is why nearly every recipe cross-references a numbered sauce elsewhere in the book. The à la Villeroi technique — masking cooked meat in a stiff reduced sauce, chilling it, then breading and frying — is a French kitchen device generally traced to the eighteenth century and named for the Villeroy family; by Ranhofer's day it was standard restaurant practice for turning small cuts into something that could be dressed in a circle on a silver platter. Guinea fowl, an African bird, sat in the poultry chapter rather than with game. The "Gaillardet" of the title is one of the many personal dedications scattered through the book, most of them now untraceable to a specific diner.