No. 2005

Pullets' Legs with New Carrots

Cuisses de Poulardes aux Carottes Nouvelles

Have three singed pullets and from them remove the legs and the skin covering the back, bone them entirely, retaining the drum sticks; stuff them with quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) and cooked fine herbs (No. 385), shaping them like a cutlet; cover with slices of fat pork and braise them in a little mirepoix stock with white wine (No. 419) into which add six dozen small new blanched carrots, but in case there be no new ones procurable use others, cutting them up to represent the new ones. When these are cooked, lift them out and place them in a saucepan with a little butter, chicken glaze (No. 398) and fine herbs. Strain the stock, free it of fat and reduce it with espagnole sauce (No. 414) to the consistency of half-glaze; skim well the surface of the sauce; dress the legs in the center of a dish with the new or other carrots around, pour over some of the sauce and serve the remainder of it separately.

← No. 2004 Pullets' Legs Deviled Capon & Pullet No. 2006 Squabs a la Briand →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's cross-references make this look harder than it is: at bottom it is boned, stuffed chicken legs braised in wine and stock, finished with glazed carrots. The work is all in the boning and in keeping the two components on separate schedules.

PulletsA pullet is a young hen under a year old, sold plump and unlaid; three of them yield six legs. Six chicken leg quarters from a supermarket bird are the practical equivalent, and buying legs alone spares you three carcasses you did not ask for.
The hinge: bone but leave the drumstickTake out the thigh bone and the thin skin from the back, and leave the drumstick in as a handle. The leg is then opened flat, forcemeat spread inside, and the whole rolled and shaped into a cutlet — tie or truss it, or it unwinds in the braise.
Quenelle forcemeat and fine herbsNo. 89 is a pounded quenelle forcemeat of the usual type, meat worked with panada and butter or cream; a food processor does in a minute what Ranhofer's cook did with a mortar. No. 385 fines herbes in The Epicurean is a cooked mixture rather than a handful of fresh herbs — mushrooms and shallots with parsley, closer to a dry duxelles.
Slices of fat porkThis is barding fat or unsmoked fatback, cut thin and laid over the top so the meat does not dry. Sheets of fatback are a butcher order; thinly sliced unsmoked salt pork, blanched first to draw the salt, is the usual stand-in.
Mirepoix stock, espagnole, chicken glazeNo. 419 is a mirepoix-based stock with white wine, the mirepoix being diced root vegetables with ham and herbs; No. 414 espagnole is the brown flour-thickened mother sauce; No. 398 glaze is stock reduced to a syrup. A well-reduced brown chicken or veal stock stands in for the espagnole and gives a cleaner sauce than the roux version.
Heat and timeBraise covered at about 325F. Stuffed legs need roughly 40 to 50 minutes, and the forcemeat should reach 165F at the center — check it, since a rolled leg looks done long before the stuffing is.
Six dozen carrotsSeventy-two small carrots is a period banquet quantity for six portions; a pound and a half, turned or cut to even batons, is enough for a modern table. Ranhofer blanches them and cooks them in the braise, but they hold better if you add them only for the last 15 minutes, then finish in butter and glaze as directed.
Half-glazeStrain, skim the fat, and reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon and just holds a line drawn through it. Skim the surface as the original directs; it keeps the sauce clear.
YieldSix legs, six servings, with the carrots in a ring and the rest of the sauce in a boat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertory written down in the classical French manner, complete with numbered cross-references to its own foundation sauces and forcemeats. The dish belongs to a family of preparations that make something of the second-best part of a bird: the legs, boned and stuffed and shaped like a cutlet, borrow the look of a proper cutlet, and in a kitchen of this size the breasts would have been going out in other dishes. Carottes nouvelles — young carrots pulled small — were a spring luxury, and Ranhofer's instruction to cut ordinary carrots down to the same shape when new ones cannot be had shows how much the visual convention of the plate mattered.