Important: Safety Warning

This page describes collecting wild birds' eggs, shooting birds for specimens, or similar practices. These activities are now illegal under wildlife-protection laws, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and they contributed to the decline of the very species described.

This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.

No. 2081

Larks a la Marechale

Aviates a la Marechale

Bone and stuff about fifteen larks with a baking forcemeat (No. 81) mixed with a little raw forcemeat (No. 91) and chopped truffles. Form these into ball-shapes and wrap each one in a small piece of cloth; tie them up tight and cook in a very little clear stock (No. 194a); drain off to tighten the cloth. When cold, unwrap the birds and pare; lay each one inside of a large head of cepes or fresh mushrooms previously scooped out with a vegetable spoon. Lay these in a sautour, pour over some hot butter and cook for ten minutes on a bright fire while covered, then baste with a few spoonfuls of half-glaze sauce (No. 413), cook again for seven or eight minutes on a slow fire, remove them with a pallet and dress on a dish; and two spoonfuls of Madeira wine to their broth and thicken it with a little half-glaze sauce (No. 413), reduce for two minutes and then pour into the dish.

← No. 2080 Young Hares' Paupiettes with Stuffed Olives Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2082 Larks Broiled →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a cross-referenced set piece from a professional French kitchen, and it cannot be reproduced today for the plain reason that its main ingredient is a protected wild songbird.

Larks are protectedSkylarks and related larks are covered by wild bird protection law in Europe, and native larks fall under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the United States, so taking, possessing or selling them is generally an offence. Commercial trade in them has effectively ended, and there is no ordinary retail source for the fifteen birds this dish requires. If you want a small-bird entree from this section of the book, work from a current recipe for farmed quail instead.
"Aviates" is a typesetting artifact"Aviates" is a garbled heading -- The word is not a dish name; it is almost certainly a corruption, probably of the French for larks, introduced somewhere between the printed page and this digitised text. The section title is the reliable guide to what is being cooked.
A la Marechale, in Ranhofer's senseElsewhere the term usually means egged, crumbed and fried. Here it signals the whole treatment: boned birds re-formed into balls, poached in their wrapping, then set in a mushroom cap and finished in butter and glaze.
The numbered cross-referencesNothing in this recipe is self-contained. No. 81 is a baking forcemeat, No. 91 a raw forcemeat, No. 194a a clear stock, and No. 413 the half-glaze -- a reduced brown sauce, roughly a modern demi-glace. Ranhofer expected a brigade with all of these standing ready.
Cloth-wrapped and pressedTying each bird tight in cloth, poaching it in barely any stock, then draining it to tighten the cloth further does as much moulding as cooking. It sets the forcemeat into a firm sphere that can be pared clean once cold.
Sautour and palletA sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan; a pallet is a flat metal spatula. Neither term implies equipment you do not already own.
CepesCepes are porcini, Boletus edulis, chosen here because a large cap can be hollowed with a vegetable spoon and will hold its shape through the better part of twenty minutes of butter and sauce.

A Little History

Small songbirds were standard luxury game across nineteenth-century Europe, sold by the dozen in markets and eaten whole or, as here, boned and rebuilt into something that concealed how little meat each bird carried. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopedic record of that kitchen, and its bird chapters run through quail, snipe, woodcock, reed-birds, plover and lark with no sense that any of them might one day be off the table. The turn came with the American Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and comparable European protections later in the century, which ended the market trade in songbirds and left recipes like this one readable only as evidence of what a fashionable dining room once expected. The technique itself survives: forcemeat-stuffed boned birds, moulded in cloth and finished in a glaze, is still how classical kitchens handle anything too small to serve on its own.