No. 2086

Partridges, Giralda—Breasts or Fillets

Ailes ou Filets de Perdreaux a la Giralda

Raise the breasts from four partridges; remove the skin and sinews and lift off the minion fillets; streak these with five slices of truffle cut the shape of a cock's-comb. Lay the large fillets in a buttered sautoir and the minion fillets formed into rings in another, filling the centers with quenelle forcemeat (No. 91) pushed through a cornet and on each one lay a small channeled mushroom (No. 118). Butter and decorate with cooked beef tongue, a plain border mold hollowed out on top (Fig. 139), fill it with partridge quenelle forcemeat (No. 91); poach in a bain-marie for half an hour first on top of the range and then in the oven. Prepare a fumet with the carcasses as in No. 397, strain and reduce with the same quantity of espagnole sauce (No. 414) and a little Madeira; skim to free it well from fat, removing all the impurities arising on the surface. Saute the fillets, poach the minion fillets, drain off the butter from the former and replace it by a few spoonfuls of Madeira to detach the glaze. Make a partridge puree with the meats picked from the birds, some rice and bechamel; rub it through a sieve and place it in a saucepan to season with salt, prepared red pepper (No. 168) and nutmeg, adding plenty of butter. Invert the mold on the center of a dish, lift it up and place the fillets on the border with a fried crouton of bread to separate each one and pour the puree in the center; serve more of the sauce separately.

← No. 2085 Partridges, Broiled English Style Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2087 Partridges a la Jules Verne-Breasts or Fille →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a full Ranhofer set piece: a poached forcemeat border ring, sautéed breasts, decorated minion fillets, a reduced game sauce and a purée in the middle. Read it as four separate preparations that meet on the platter, and build the timeline backwards from the moment the breasts are cooked, since they are the one element that will not wait.

The hinge: the breastsPartridge breast is lean and dries out in a minute. Sauté the large fillets in foaming butter over brisk heat only until the flesh springs back — roughly two to three minutes a side for a bird this size — and poach the small minion fillets gently, barely at a tremble. Everything else can be held warm; these cannot.
SautoirA shallow straight-sided sauté pan. Two are called for because the large fillets are sautéed and the decorated minion fillets are poached, and the ring-shaped ones need room not to be disturbed.
Minion filletsThe filet mignon of a bird is the small inner muscle lying against the breastbone. On a partridge it is about the size of a thumb, which is why it is curled into a ring rather than served flat.
Border mold, bain-marieA plain ring mold, buttered and lined with cut cooked tongue, filled with forcemeat and set in a water bath. Ranhofer starts it on the stovetop to set the outside, then finishes it in the oven; no temperature is given, so keep the bath below a simmer rather than guessing at a dial setting. It is done when the center is firm to a fingertip, around thirty minutes for a small mold.
Fumet and espagnoleThe fumet (No. 397) is a concentrated stock made from the carcasses; espagnole (No. 414) is the old brown mother sauce, a roux-thickened brown veal stock. A good reduced brown chicken or veal stock, reduced with the partridge fumet and Madeira, gives the same result without the two-day roux.
Prepared red pepperRanhofer's No. 168 is his own prepared cayenne preparation, made up in advance so it disperses evenly. Plain cayenne, used sparingly, does the job.
Channeled mushroomA mushroom cap grooved in a spiral with the tip of a knife and cooked white in butter with lemon — decoration, not flavor. Skip it if you are not plating formally.
Sourcing the birdsTruly wild partridge is generally not offered for commercial sale in the United States; farmed chukar, French red-leg or, at a pinch, quail (allow two per person) or a small poussin will stand in. Four partridges yield eight large fillets and eight minion fillets -- four servings, and the carcasses and leg meat are needed for the fumet and the puree, so buy them whole.
The puréeLeg and trim meat pounded with cooked rice and béchamel, sieved, then loosened with butter. A food processor and a fine sieve will do what the mortar did; keep it slack enough to pour into the center of the ring.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for most of the last third of the nineteenth century, and The Epicurean (1894) is his own catalogue of what that restaurant could produce — nearly 3,500 numbered items, cross-referenced so that a cook could assemble a dish from parts. The naming habit here is characteristic of the period: la Giralda, like la Jules Verne next to it, ties a garnish formula to a name — in this case generally taken to refer to the Giralda tower of Seville, part of the fashion for Spanish-flavored titles. The construction tells you as much about the era as the flavor does. Fillets from four birds, a tongue-lined forcemeat ring, a purée thickened with rice, and the carcasses boiled down for sauce: the game bird is dismantled and every part put to a separate use, which is what allowed a brigade kitchen to turn four small birds into a course grand enough for a Delmonico's menu.