No. 2093

Partridges a la Baudrimont

Perdreaux a la Baudrimont

Roast two partridges; untruss and set aside to cool, remove breast meats in a way to form a hollow in the shape of a case, cut the meats into three-eighths of inch squares; prepare an equal quantity of mushrooms cut the same, as much ducks' livers and some small partridge quenelles made with a coffeespoon (No. 155). Put a gill of Madeira into a saucepan, heat it well without boiling and let a piece of Ceylon cinnamon infuse therein for half an hour, take this out, then add some espagnole sauce (No. 414) and reduce the whole; throw in the salpicon and when all is cold, use it to fill the partridges, having the breasts nicely rounded; cover over with quenelle forcemeat (No. 91), smooth neatly and cover the whole with melted butter; bestrew bread-crumbs and parmesan over and brown in a moderate oven, being careful to baste occasionally while cooking. Arrange the partridges on a dish, glaze with a little half-glaze sauce (No. 413) and serve a financiere sauce (No. 464) apart.

← No. 2092 Salmis of Partridges Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2094 Partridges a la Chartreuse →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Ranhofer set-piece: two roast partridges hollowed out, refilled with a Madeira-scented salpicon, masked in forcemeat and gratinated. The cross-references do most of the work, so the practical difficulty is deciding what to substitute for them.

The hinge: the birds are already cookedThe partridges are roasted first, then stuffed and browned a second time. Roast them lightly — just to the point where the breast is rosy — because the gratin stage will finish them. Fully roasted birds emerge dry no matter how faithfully you baste.
A gill of MadeiraHalf a cup, 4 fl oz. Heat it without boiling so the alcohol and aroma stay in the pan while the cinnamon infuses; a hard boil drives off what you are trying to extract.
Moderate ovenConventionally read as around 350°F. The aim is to set the forcemeat coating and colour the crumbs and parmesan over already-roasted birds, so it needs less time than a raw roast; watch it rather than trusting a clock, and baste as instructed. If the crumbs colour before the coating sets, tent loosely with foil.
Espagnole, half-glaze, financièreEspagnole is the old brown mother sauce, thickened with brown roux and simmered for hours; half-glaze (demi-glace) is espagnole reduced with more stock. A good reduced veal or game stock, lightly thickened, stands in for both. Financière is demi-glace with Madeira, truffle and mushroom — build it from the same base.
Ducks' liversRanhofer means duck liver, not necessarily foie gras. Ordinary duck or chicken livers, trimmed of sinew and briefly sautéed before dicing, give the right texture; raw liver diced into the salpicon will weep.
Quenelles by coffeespoonA coffeespoon is smaller than a teaspoon, so these are small dumplings, roughly pea to hazelnut size. Poach them in barely trembling salted water or stock until firm, then cool before they go into the filling.
Cool the filling completelyThe instruction that all be cold before stuffing is not fussiness. A warm, loose salpicon slumps and pushes the forcemeat coating off the breast during baking.
Ceylon cinnamonTrue cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum), softer and more floral than the cassia sold as cinnamon in most supermarkets. Cassia will work but use rather less; it dominates a Madeira reduction quickly.
YieldTwo birds will serve two generously, or four as one course among many.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years' cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and this dish shows the house method at full stretch: a bird is roasted, dismantled, reassembled around a finer version of itself, and sent out under a sauce with a name from the Paris repertoire. The salpicon — meat, mushroom and liver cut to uniform small dice and bound in a reduced sauce — was a standard building block of nineteenth-century grande cuisine, and the financière garnish that accompanies it, built on truffle, mushroom, cockscombs and Madeira, is often said to have taken its name from the idea that only a financier could afford it. The Baudrimont attribution is the kind of dedication Ranhofer scattered through the book, honouring patrons, colleagues and occasions; several such names in The Epicurean can no longer be traced to a specific person. The partridges themselves would have been wild birds bought in season, when American game markets still sold quail, grouse and shorebirds by the dozen — a trade that market-hunting laws largely ended within a generation of this book's publication.