No. 2000

Pullets' Breasts a la Varsovian

Filets de Poularde a la Varsovienne

Prepare and cook the pullet fillets as for Montmorency (No. 1998), poach them in butter and dish in a circle intercalating with a crouton of bread fried in butter; fill the center with cepes sauted with fine herbs and garnish around with small chicken croquettes (No. 877) made crescent-shaped and fried in hot and very white frying fat. Cover the fillets with bechamel (No. 409) into which has been mixed a little meat glaze (No. 402) and lemon juice; have a sauce-boat of the same sauce served at the same time as the fillets.

← No. 1999 Pullet a la Montpensier—Minion Fillets Capon & Pullet No. 2001 Pullets' Breasts a la Visconti →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, sauce and croquette mixture standing by, so the entry reads as an assembly note rather than a recipe. Treated as a plated chicken breast with mushrooms and a lemon-sharpened cream sauce, it is straightforward.

Pullet filletsA pullet is a young hen under a year old; the fillets are the two boneless breast halves plus the minion fillet (tenderloin) beneath. Four skinless boneless chicken breasts, halved horizontally into thin cutlets, stand in exactly.
Poaching in butter is the hingeThe fillets are cooked gently in butter in a covered pan without colouring; they should stay white. Keep the heat low enough that the butter never browns. Cook to 165F internal for safety; thin cutlets need only a few minutes.
CepesCepes are Boletus edulis, sold as porcini. Fresh ones are seasonal and expensive; 1 oz dried, soaked in warm water 20 minutes and drained, gives roughly 4 to 6 oz reconstituted. "Fine herbs" here is the classic fines herbes -- parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon -- and the recipe sautes them with the cepes.
IntercalatingSimply means alternating: fillet, crouton, fillet, crouton around the rim of the dish. The croutons are bread cut to roughly the footprint of the fillets and fried in butter until crisp.
Meat glazeNo. 402 is glace de viande, brown stock reduced to a syrup. A tablespoon of good reduced demi-glace or a teaspoon of commercial glace de viande dissolved into the bechamel does the same work; it darkens the sauce slightly and gives it savour. Stir the lemon juice in at the end.
"Hot and very white" frying fatMost likely fresh, clear fat that has not darkened from earlier frying, so the croquettes stay pale gold; it may also point to a white fat such as lard. Fry at 350-375F. Lard or a neutral oil both work.
CroquettesNo. 877 is a bound chicken croquette mixture, chilled firm, shaped, breaded and fried. Shape crescents from well-chilled mixture and keep them small -- about 1 1/2 inches -- or the centres will not heat through before the crust colours.
YieldThe recipe states no quantities. Working from four breasts split into cutlets it will serve four to six as a main course, and about 1 1/2 cups of bechamel covers the fillets with enough left for the sauce-boat.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its numbering system -- every preparation cross-referenced to a sauce, a garnish, a forcemeat elsewhere in the book -- is the whole point of it: the book is a professional kitchen's internal manual printed for the public. Garnish names of this kind were the working vocabulary of nineteenth-century French service, and a la Varsovienne simply means "Warsaw-style," one of a long roll of place and personal names (Montmorency, Montpensier, Visconti on the neighbouring pages) that told a cook which garnish to reach for rather than describing any national dish. Here the one marker that might read as eastern European is the cepe. A menu that specified poularde rather than poulet was signalling a fatted young hen with a large, tender breast -- the cut this dish exists to show off.