No. 1994

Pullet with Mussels or Oysters

Poularde aux Moules ou aux Huitres

Truss and cook a pullet exactly as with the ravioles (No. 1995), wash some mussels in several waters and place them in a covered saucepan over a brisk fire to open; when this occurs remove from their shells, transfer them to another vessel. Fry colorless in butter a little parsley and chives, add two gills of either bechamel (No. 409) or veloute (No. 415), a little stock (No. 194a) and grated nutmeg; boil this sauce up once or twice, then put in either the mussels or else some prepared oysters; just when ready to serve, drain the pullet, untruss and dress. Thicken the sauce with a few raw egg-yolks and fine butter, heat it up without boiling and range the garnishings around the pullet, cover over with a part of the sauce and serve what remains separately.

← No. 1993 Pullet with Croustades Financiere Capon & Pullet No. 1995 Pullet with Ravioles →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer assumes you have a poached pullet and a bechamel or veloute already in hand; the new work here is the shellfish and the egg-yolk finish. Two things decide whether it succeeds: the mussels must not cook twice, and the finished sauce must never boil.

The hinge: liaison off the heatOnce raw egg yolks and butter go in, the sauce holds only below about 180F. Bring it near a simmer and it curdles into grains. Whisk the yolks with a little of the hot sauce first, return it, and warm gently while stirring.
Mussels open, then stopSteam them covered just until the shells gape, then shuck and set aside. They go into the hot sauce at the last moment to warm through, not to cook. Reheated mussels shrink to rubber within a couple of minutes.
Oysters need less still"Prepared oysters" most likely means shucked and poached briefly in their own liquor until the edges ruffle, a minute or two at most. Add them to the sauce off the boil.
Grit and dead shellfishRanhofer's several waters were for sand. Modern rope-grown mussels need only a scrub and debearding, but discard any that are cracked or that stay open when tapped, and any that refuse to open after steaming.
GillsTwo gills is one cup of sauce, plus a splash of stock to loosen it. That is enough for a single bird with garnish and a little sauce passed at table.
PulletA pullet is a young hen, roughly 3 to 4 lb dressed. A standard supermarket roasting chicken of that weight is the direct substitute; a capon of 6 to 8 lb would need proportionally more sauce.
Fry colorlessSweat the parsley and chives in butter over low heat so they stay green and the butter takes no color. Any browning shows in a white sauce.
Strain the mussel liquorThe liquid left in the pan after steaming carries most of the flavor. Let it settle, pour off the clear part, and use it in place of some of the stock; the sediment at the bottom is sand.
YieldOne bird serves four, with rice or plain boiled potatoes to take the sauce.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is built as a cross-referenced system rather than a book of standalone recipes: here the bird is cooked "exactly as with the ravioles," the sauce comes from No. 409 or No. 415, the stock from No. 194a. Pairing poultry with shellfish in a white sauce is older than Delmonico's and is often traced to the French provincial habit of finishing poached fowl with whatever the coast supplied, mussels in Normandy and Brittany especially. In the 1890s New York oysters were cheap, abundant and sold from street stands; the beds that made that possible were largely fished out and polluted within a generation. The egg-yolk-and-butter liaison at the end is essentially the sauce allemande finish, standard in nineteenth-century professional kitchens and now mostly displaced by reduction and cream.