No. 1977

Pullet a la Mornay

Poularde a la Mornay

Select a good clean pullet and truss it for entree (No. 178); poeler it in a stock (No. 194a), keeping it very white, then drain, and when half cold detach the bread so as to be able to dress a garnishing in the empty spaces of the remaining carcass. Escalop these breast fillets and lay them in a sautoir with a garnishing composed of cocks'-combs and kidneys, mushrooms and foies-gras, and moisten this stew rather sparingly with reduced thick allemande sauce (No. 407). Range this in the cleaned out empty space, having them reassume their former shape, smooth them nicely and cover with a layer of Mornay sauce (No. 504), smooth this also and besprinkle over with a grated parmesan cheese, then glaze the surface under a salamander (Fig. 123) or in a hot oven. After finishing the pullet dress it on a long dish containing a layer of poached forcemeat, cover the breasts with a row of slices of truffles and surround the base with clusters of chicken croquettes.

← No. 1976 Pullet a la Martiniere Capon & Pullet No. 1978 Pullet a la Nantua →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot, a sauce cook and a salamander already going, and he refers out to numbered recipes throughout. Read it as an assembly plan: a bird is butter-roasted, the breasts are carved off, bound in sauce with a garnish, packed back into the carcass and glazed.

The hinge: keep it whiteEverything depends on poêler-ing the bird pale — cooked covered in butter with aromatic vegetables and a little stock, never browned. If the skin colours, the Mornay glaze sits on a tan bird and the dish loses its point. Butter and a tight lid over low heat; Ranhofer specifies neither temperature nor time, so judge by feel and cook until the thickest part of the breast reaches a safe 165F.
PulletA young hen under a year old, not yet laying, sold plump and pale. A 4–5 lb roasting chicken is the practical substitute; a capon (the neighbouring recipes) was a castrated cock, larger and fattier, and is less commonly stocked today though butchers and some supermarkets still carry them.
Trussing "for entree"No. 178 is Ranhofer's trussing-for-entrée instruction; trussing of this sort draws the legs and wings in tight against the body so the bird holds a compact shape after the breasts are removed. Kitchen twine and a trussing needle; without it the carcass slumps and there is no cavity to refill.
Sautoir and salamanderA sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan — a sauté pan or wide skillet. The salamander was an overhead radiant grill; a modern broiler on high, with the dish 4–6 inches from the element, or the top of a very hot oven — Ranhofer says only "a hot oven" — does the same glazing job in a few minutes.
Allemande and MornayAllemande (No. 407) is velouté finished with egg yolk and cream, reduced here until it barely coats. Mornay (No. 504) is béchamel with Gruyère and Parmesan and often a yolk. Both must be thick enough to hold their shape under the broiler; a thin sauce runs off the reassembled breast.
Cocks'-combs and kidneysCockscombs, blanched and peeled, and cock testicles — standard nineteenth-century garnish, effectively unobtainable now. Omit them and lean on the mushrooms, truffle and foie gras; sweetbread or a little diced chicken gives a comparable soft texture. Note that foie gras is restricted or banned in some jurisdictions.
EscalopHere it means slicing the cooked breast fillets crosswise on the bias into broad thin pieces, so they can be shingled back over the garnish and made to "reassume their former shape."
Yield and pacingRanhofer gives no yield; one bird, escaloped and garnished, would serve several people as one course of a longer menu. The forcemeat base, the croquettes and the sauces are all separate preparations; done in one session this is most of a day, and only the final glazing must happen at the last minute.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the repertoire he cooked at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry is a fair sample of the house style: a bird taken apart, enriched, put back together and served looking whole. Mornay sauce — béchamel with grated cheese — is generally traced to mid-nineteenth-century Paris and its naming is usually attributed, without firm documentation, to the Mornay family or to the restaurant Le Grand Véfour; by Ranhofer's day it was simply a standard entry in the sauce book. The dish also shows how a New York kitchen of the 1890s stocked its larder: cockscombs, cock kidneys, truffles and foie gras all arrived as a matter of course, and the long chain of cross-references (Nos. 178, 194a, 407, 504) assumes a kitchen where forcemeat, croquettes and mother sauces were already made and waiting.