No. 1988

Pullet Ivory with Decorated Quenelles

Poularde a l'\fIvoire aux Quenelles Decorees

Break the breast bone of a cleaned and singed pullet, tie it up as for an entree (No. 178) and insert a piece of butter into the breast; cover over with bards of fat pork and set it in a saucepan of its own dimensions; moisten to its height with stock (No. 194a), boil the liquid over a hot fire then remove the saucepan on a slower one, cover and finish cooking the pullet for forty-five to sixty minutes. As soon as done to perfection, strain the stock through a napkin into another vessel leaving the pullet to keep warm. Skim the fat from the stock and pour the top gently into another saucepan, then reduce it with some veloute sauce (No. 415) and cream; strain this through a tammy. Dress the pullet, pour the sauce over, and garnish around with chicken quenelles decorated with truffles (No. 154).

← No. 1987 Pullet in Surprise Capon & Pullet No. 1989 Pullet, Modern Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic white poach: the bird is cooked gently in stock, the stock becomes the sauce, and nothing is allowed to brown. Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot and a larder of numbered preparations, so most of the work is deciding what to substitute.

What a pullet isA young hen, generally under a year old and typically 3-4 lb dressed. A supermarket roasting chicken of 3.5-4 lb behaves the same way; skip anything labelled stewing hen, which needs far longer cooking than the times given here.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of pork fatback, fresh or lightly salted, tied over the breast to keep it from drying and to stop it colouring. Sliced fatback or unsmoked streaky bacon does the job. Without them the breast will still cook, but the surface dries where it meets the air above the stock.
Breaking the breast bonePressing down to crack the keel lets the bird sit flat and low in the pan so the liquid reaches its height without needing gallons of stock. Trussing tightly after that keeps the legs from splaying and cooking faster than the breast.
A saucepan of its own dimensionsA pan barely larger than the bird means you moisten to its height with a modest quantity of stock rather than a stockpot's worth, and the resulting cooking liquid is concentrated enough to make sauce. In a wide pan the stock is more dilute and needs longer reduction.
Boil, then slowBring up over high heat, then move to low and hold at a bare shiver dash roughly 175-185F, with the surface barely trembling. A rolling boil for an hour will shred the breast and cloud the stock. Forty-five to sixty minutes is right for a 3.5 lb bird; check that the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F.
The stockNo. 194a is presumably a white, unbrowned stock. Use a light unsalted chicken stock; anything roasted or dark defeats the name of the dish, which depends on the sauce staying pale.
Velouté — a light chicken stock thickened with a blond roux. About a cup of velouté plus a half cup of cream, reduced with the skimmed poaching liquor, will coat a bird of this size. Reduce before adding the cream, not after, or it will break.Velouté — a light chicken stock thickened with a blond roux. The recipe has you reduce the skimmed poaching liquor with velouté and cream together, judging by eye until it will coat the bird. A tammy is a fine woollen straining cloth; a chinois lined with a double layer of damp muslin gives the same glossy, lump-free result.
The quenellesForced chicken meat bound with panada and egg, piped or moulded into ovals, poached in salted water, then inlaid with cut shapes of truffle. Any fine chicken mousseline works. Poach them at the same bare simmer as the bird; boiling water will make them swell and burst.
YieldServes four to six. Carve at the table or in the kitchen, but sauce it at the last moment dash an ivory sauce sitting on hot poultry skins over in minutes.

A Little History

À l'ivoire is generally understood as a colour instruction rather than a recipe name: on this reading, the point is that neither the bird nor the sauce ever takes on the faintest tinge of brown, so the finished dish reads as pale as ivory against the black inlay of the truffle-decorated quenelles. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working compendium of the French repertoire as it was actually cooked in an American grand restaurant, which is why the text is a web of cross-references — No. 178 for trussing, No. 194a for the stock, No. 415 for the velouté — rather than a self-contained recipe. Poaching the hen keeps the flesh moist and, just as importantly, produces the concentrated cooking liquor that becomes the sauce, so nothing is wasted. The decorated quenelle, cut with tiny truffle shapes and arranged around the platter, belongs to the same taste for visible labour that filled the plates of the 1890s dining room.