No. 2088

Partridges a la Lucullus—Breasts or Fillets

Ailes ou Filets de Perdreaux a la Lucullus

Roast some partridges that have been wrapped up exactly as explained for a la Matignon (No. 2096); when done remove the breasts, pare and lay them in a sautoir with a little half-glaze (No. 400). Prepare a fumet (No. 397) with the parings and carcasses. Butter a plain border mold deep on the top (Fig. 139), decorate the sides with fanciful cuts of truffles and fill it entirely with partridge cream forcemeat (No. 75). Cut some raw artichoke bottoms into small squares, then blanch, cut some carrots into half inch diameter balls, and blanch them likewise, some turnips the same, blanching them as well, some small cooked mushroom heads and truffles shaped like a clove of garlic. First put the artichokes with some butter, add the carrots and turnips, and moisten with a little Madeira and the fumet; let cook slowly and when these three vegetables are done, then add the mushrooms and truffles; as soon as the liquid reduces entirely pour in some veloute sauce (No. 415) and toss the garnishings in it, adding small pieces of fresh butter; with this fill the hollow in the center of the unmolded border; glaze the breasts or fillets, trim them with favor frills (No. 10) and lay them on top of the garnishings; surround the border with small three-quarters of an inch balls made of foies-gras from a terrine pressed through a sieve, bread-crumbed, egged, then fried.

← No. 2087 Partridges a la Jules Verne-Breasts or Fille Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2089 Partridges a la Veron—Breasts or Fillets →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a Delmonico's plated centerpiece rather than a dinner recipe: a poached forcemeat ring filled with buttered vegetables, topped with roast partridge breasts. Ranhofer assumes you have his stocks and sauces already made, so read it as an assembly plan and build the components first.

The hinge: the forcemeat borderThe recipe never tells you to cook the ring, but partridge cream forcemeat needs gentle moist heat, not dry baking. Set the buttered, truffle-lined mold in a water bath and cook it gently until just set in the center, checking from about half an hour for a standard ring mold; no temperature or time is given in the original. Keep the water below a boil, or the forcemeat will curdle and the border will weep when unmolded.
The cross-referencesNothing here works without them. No. 2096 is the a la Matignon wrapping (a matignon is an aromatic vegetable mixture, generally used under a barding of fat pork; check No. 2096 for Ranhofer's exact method), No. 400 is half-glaze, No. 397 a fumet, No. 415 veloute, No. 75 the cream forcemeat, No. 10 the paper frills. Substitute a good reduced game or veal stock and a butter-mounted veloute if you are not working through the whole book.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, not a deep pot. Here it is only used to hold the pared breasts warm in a spoonful of demi-glace, so any wide pan with a lid will do.
Roasting the birdsPartridge breast is very lean and overcooks quickly, so roast hot and check early rather than by the clock; note that the birds go into the oven wrapped as for a la Matignon, which slows the browning. No times or temperatures are given in the original. Rest the birds before removing the fillets, and save every scrap of skin, bone and trim for the fumet, which is where the flavor of the dish actually lives.
Sourcing the birdWild partridge is not a supermarket item in most places. Farmed grey partridge or chukar from a game dealer is the direct equivalent; two small fillets per bird means four to six birds for four people, and the garnish is generous enough that the plate does not depend on volume of meat.
The vegetable garnishHalf-inch balls of carrot and turnip come off a large Parisian scoop. Blanch each vegetable separately to just short of tender, since artichoke, carrot and turnip cook at different rates, then finish them in butter, Madeira and fumet as written. Mushrooms and truffles go in last so they do not turn gray and leach.
Truffles and foie grasThe "clove of garlic" shape is a truffle turned to a small tapered oval. Preserved truffle in its own juice is a reasonable modern stand-in -- it was also common in Ranhofer's own kitchen -- and truffle oil is not. The fried balls are simply sieved terrine foie gras rolled, chilled hard, breaded and fried briefly in hot fat; the original gives no frying temperature, and they must be very cold or they collapse.
YieldNo yield is given. On a modern estimate, one ring mold with the breasts of four to six partridges serves four to six as a course within a longer menu.

A Little History

The name is a straight borrowing from Lucius Licinius Lucullus, the Roman general whose dinners became a byword for extravagance, and by the late nineteenth century "a la Lucullus" in a French kitchen was shorthand for the most expensive garnish available: truffles, foie gras, cockscombs, quenelles. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that restaurant's repertoire, and the partridge chapter alone runs to dozens of numbered variations distinguished chiefly by garnish, which is how grande cuisine organized itself: one technique, endless named dressings. The elaborate cross-referencing here presumably reflects an audience of professional brigades who would already have demi-glace, veloute and forcemeat standing in the kitchen. Worth noting for American readers that "partridge" in nineteenth-century United States usage often meant ruffed grouse or bobwhite quail depending on the region, and which bird Ranhofer had in mind is not clear from the text.