No. 2089

Partridges a la Veron—Breasts or Fillets

Ailes ou Filets de Perdreaux a la Veron

Trim the breasts of four partridges, then range them in a sautoir with clarified butter, and salt over. Cook the legs in a small saucepan with some stock (No. 194a), let them get quite cold and then cut off the tenderest parts of the meats; pound these with the cooked partridge livers, two or three spoonfuls of cooked truffles and two spoonfuls of veloute sauce (No. 415); then press the whole through a sieve. Put this pulp into a saucepan with an equal amount of chestnut puree (No. 712), and two spoonfuls of good melted glaze (No. 398); season and heat without ceasing to stir and without letting it boil; finish with a piece of butter. Poach the partridge breasts, drain off the butter and pour a little sauce over; dress them in a circle on a dish alternating each one with a crouton of bread cut cock's-comb-shaped and browned in clarified butter; lay the puree in the center of the circle, and cover over the fillets with a melted glaze applied with a brush.

← No. 2088 Partridges a la Lucullus—Breasts or Fillets Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2090 Partridges—Minced →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A classic Delmonico's game preparation that uses the whole bird: the breasts are served whole, the legs and livers become the purée beneath them. Read it as two operations run in parallel, and note that nothing in the sauce may boil.

The hinge: no boilingThe leg-and-liver pulp is held together mainly by butter and the gelatin of the reduced glaze, with only two spoonfuls of velouté contributing any starch. Ranhofer is explicit that it must not boil: hold it below a simmer and stir constantly while it heats, then finish with the piece of butter.
"Poach" the breasts means butter-poach"Poach" the breasts means gentle cooking in fat -- The fillets sit in the clarified butter of the sautoir and cook gently in it rather than browning. The recipe gives no temperatures; partridge breast is very lean and goes dry and grainy if pushed, so keep the heat low.
SautoirA shallow, straight-sided pan, close to what is now sold as a 10-inch saute pan (a sauteuse has sloping sides). The recipe does not say how deep the butter should be.
Getting partridgeFarmed grey or chukar partridge is sold frozen by game dealers; four birds give eight small fillets. Failing that, use squab or quail breasts (allow more per person) or two Cornish hens, which are milder but the right size and leanness.
Melted glazeNo. 398 is glace de viande -- brown stock reduced until it sets like rubber when cold. A good commercial demi-glace or veal glace, loosened over heat, does the same job both in the purée and as the brush-on coating that gives the fillets their lacquer.
Chestnut pureeRanhofer's No. 712 is a savoury, unsweetened puree, not a dessert one. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts simmered in the leg stock and blended work well. Avoid the sweetened French creme de marrons sold for desserts.
Truffles"Two or three spoonfuls of cooked truffles" belongs to a period when black truffle was used far more freely than now, not to a time when it was cheap. A small amount of preserved truffle plus a spoonful of its juice is the honest modern substitute; truffle oil will read as perfume against the game and is better left out.
The croutonsCut white bread into pointed, notched crescents -- the cock's-comb shape was standard garnish vocabulary -- and fry in clarified butter until evenly gold. Do them last; they soften within minutes of meeting the sauce.
YieldFour servings as a game course, two fillets each, with the puree mounded in the center of the ring on the dish.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of thirty years' cooking at Delmonico's in New York, where game formed its own course and partridge appeared in dozens of named guises. Dishes styled a la Veron are generally traced to the Parisian gastronomic circles of the mid-nineteenth century -- Louis-Desire Veron, physician, newspaper proprietor and director of the Paris Opera, was a celebrated glutton whose name attached itself to restaurant cookery, though the link to any single recipe is traditional rather than documented. What the recipe really shows is the period's thrift inside its extravagance: the prized fillets are served whole and glazed, while the tough legs, the livers and the trimmings are cooked, pounded, sieved and rebuilt with chestnut into the puree that the fillets are arranged around. Nothing of the four birds is wasted, and the whole construction depends on a kitchen that already had velouté, glaze and chestnut puree standing ready -- which is why Ranhofer writes it as four cross-references and a paragraph.