No. 2094

Partridges a la Chartreuse

Perdreaux a la Chartreuse

Blanch two cabbages each cut in four and the core removed; drain and divide them into small clusters, press out all the water and braise them with a piece of bacon of about ten ounces that has been previously parboiled. Prepare a garnishing of carrots and turnips, blanch and then cook them in broth to allow finally to fall to a glaze; have also some quenelles made with a coffeespoon (No. 155). Fry in butter or melted fat pork, two trussed partridges, season and when of a fine color, drain them off, make a hollow in the middle of the cabbage in the saucepan and lay the partridges in, and finish cooking all together. As soon as the birds are done, drain them off and keep them warm in a saucepan with a little half-glaze (No. 400), drain off also the bacon and cabbage, extract all the fat from the latter and dress half of it in the center of a dish, lay the partridges on top and surround with the rest of the cabbage, the carrots, the turnips and the quenelles all in separate clusters. Glaze the partridges over with a brush and serve with a sauce-boatful of the half-glaze from the saucepan.

Another Way.—Decorate a timbale mold with carrots and turnips, upholding the decorations with a layer of thick game quenelle forcemeat (No. 91). Cut up the partridges and fill the mold with the cabbage, the bacon and the partridges, place it in a sautoir containing water and put in the oven for half an hour; unmold, pour part of the sauce around the chartreuse and serve. A half-glaze sauce (No. 413) should be served separately at the same time.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade and a shelf of numbered cross-references. Stripped down, this is a cabbage braise with game buried in it, either served loose on a platter or packed into a lined mold — the second version being the true chartreuse.

The hinge: the cabbage carries the dishThe partridges cook in a hollow made in the braising cabbage, so the cabbage absorbs the fat and juices and the birds stay moist. Squeeze the blanched cabbage genuinely dry before braising, and skim or press out the fat before plating, or the finished dish is greasy rather than glossy.
Birds you can actually buyWild grey partridge is rare in shops. Two farmed red-legged partridge, two quail, or one small Cornish hen split will stand in. Reckon two partridges for two to three people; scale the cabbage down if you are using a single bird.
Don't braise it to deathPartridge breast is very lean and turns dry and cottony well before the legs give up. Brown the trussed birds, then give them roughly 25-35 minutes in the cabbage, covered, over low heat — pull them at 155-160F in the thigh and rest. Older wild birds need longer; the molded version, built from cut-up meat, tolerates that longer cooking more forgivingly.
Half-glazeRanhofer's "half-glaze" is demi-glace — brown stock reduced with sauce espagnole. A well-reduced brown veal or game stock, slightly thickened, does the job. His No. 413 is cited here as a "half-glaze sauce", apparently the same preparation finished for the table.
QuenellesPoached dumplings of pounded game or veal bound with panade, egg and cream, shaped between two small spoons into little ovals and poached in barely simmering salted water or broth until they float and firm, about 5-8 minutes. "Made with a coffeespoon" means small — under an inch.
The baconTen ounces of slab bacon, unsliced, parboiled to draw off salt and smoke before it goes in with the cabbage. Modern supermarket bacon is wetter and milder; a piece of unsmoked pancetta or salt pork is closer to the original, and the parboiling still matters if it is heavily cured.
Vegetables cooked "to a glaze"Turned or batonned carrots and turnips are simmered in broth until the liquid reduces to a syrup that coats them. Do it in a wide pan so the reduction happens before the vegetables collapse. For the molded version they need to be cut to a uniform size, since they become the pattern on the outside.
Molds and ovenA sautoir is a straight-sided sauté pan; here it holds water as a bain-marie. A plain charlotte or timbale mold, buttered, lined with the vegetable decoration and then a layer of forcemeat, baked in the water bath at 325-350F for the half hour specified, will set firmly enough to unmold. Let it stand five minutes before turning out.

A Little History

A chartreuse is a molded dish of vegetables enclosing meat or game, and the name is generally traced to the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, whose rule barred meat — the story being that cooks learned to hide it under a decorative casing of vegetables. Whatever the truth of that, by the nineteenth century the chartreuse was a set piece of French grande cuisine: Carême treated it as one of the tests of a cook's hand, since the carrot-and-turnip lining must be built up in a pattern that survives unmolding. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working compendium of that tradition, which is why the recipe reads as a chain of cross-references to numbered forcemeats and sauces elsewhere in the book. The pairing with braised cabbage and bacon is older and humbler than the mold — partridge with cabbage is standard French country practice for birds past their first youth — and Ranhofer's first method is essentially that dish plated in the grand manner, with the elaborate timbale offered as the alternative for a formal table.