No. 2003

Pullets' Legs a la Bayonnaise

Cuisses de Poularde a la Bayonnaise

Remove the legs from three singed pullet retaining the skin covering the back as far down as the rump; bone them entirely with the exception of the drumstick; put them in a vessel with salt, mignonette, lemon juice and a broken bay leaf; let marinate for three hours, being careful to turn them over several times. Twenty-five minutes before serving, drain and roll each one in flour, fry them in grated fat pork and when they attain a fine color and are well cooked, remove. Slice four medium onions three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness; detach the pieces so they form rings, flour over and fry these to a golden brown. Dress the legs in the middle of a dish, cover over with brown poivrade sauce (No. 522) with some grated Bayonne ham added to it, and garnish the whole with the fried onions; trim the stump bones with paper frills (No. 10) and serve immediately.

← No. 2002 Pullets' Minion Fillets with Macedoine Capon & Pullet No. 2004 Pullets' Legs Deviled →

For the Modern Kitchen

A boned-and-fried chicken leg dish from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, dressed with a peppery brown sauce and fried onion rings. Most of the work is in the boning; the frying is quick.

Start with the boningThe point of the dish is a leg boned out except for the drumstick, which stays as a handle, with a flap of back skin left attached to wrap the meat. Work from the inside with a small knife, scrape the thigh bone free and pull it out, then fold the meat into a neat parcel and secure with string or a toothpick before marinating.
PulletsA pullet is a young hen under about a year, roughly 3 to 4 lb dressed. Six legs from three modern chickens are the equivalent; ordinary chicken leg quarters with the back skin still attached work best.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked white or black peppercorns, not fine-ground pepper. Crack them under a pan base so the pieces stay visible in the marinade.
The marinadeThree hours in salt, pepper, lemon juice and bay is a seasoning marinade rather than a tenderiser. Keep it refrigerated, and pat the legs dry before flouring or the coating will slide off.
Grated fat porkFresh pork fatback or salt pork, grated so it renders quickly. In practice you render it, discard the solids, and fry in the clear fat; lard is a direct substitute. If you use salt pork, hold back on salting the flour.
Frying timeThe recipe starts the process twenty-five minutes before service, which is the whole allowance for flouring, frying and dressing rather than a stated frying time. Boned thighs in fat at about 325-350F take 10 to 15 minutes; go by an internal temperature of 165F rather than the clock.
Onion ringsThree-sixteenths of an inch is about 5 mm. Slice, separate into rings, dust with flour and fry in a second pan of hot fat until golden, then drain on paper so they stay crisp while you plate.
Poivrade sauce and Bayonne hamThe cross-reference No. 522 is Ranhofer's brown poivrade; a poivrade of this period is generally a brown sauce worked with mirepoix and vinegar and well peppered, then strained. Bayonne ham is a dry-cured ham from the southwest of France; a good prosciutto or serrano, finely grated, stands in.
Frills and yieldThe paper frills are purely decorative and can be skipped. Six legs serve six as a course, three as a main plate.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that repertoire, which is why the book runs to thousands of numbered recipes cross-referencing one another. "A la Bayonnaise" points to Bayonne in the Basque country of southwestern France, and in nineteenth-century French cooking the tag is often taken to signal the region's famous dry-cured ham, here grated into the sauce; the fried onions and the sharp peppery poivrade belong to the same southwestern idiom. The dish also shows the period's thrift inside its luxury: legs were the cheaper half of the bird once the breast fillets had gone to a more delicate preparation, as they do in the recipe immediately preceding this one, and boning them out turned an awkward cut into something that could be sauced and served like a proper entree.