No. 2098

Partridges Braised a la Moliere

Perdreaux Braises a la Moliere

Truss three partridges as for an entree (No. 178); cover the breasts with slices of lemon and these with bards of fat pork. Line a flat saucepan with the fragments of pork, some ham, cut up vegetables and a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf; lay the partridges on top and moisten with half a pint of dry white wine and half a pint of stock (No. 194a); boil this liquid, skim and continue to boil slowly either on the side of the range or in the oven until the partridges are cooked then drain and untruss. Cut each one up into five parts and arrange them in a saucepan to keep warm in a bain-marie with the fat drained from the first saucepan; in the stock place the broken carcasses, moisten with half a pint of clear gravy (No. 404) and half a glassful of Madeira, boil up, then strain through a sieve and reduce again to half, thickening it with some veloute sauce (No. 415); pour this over the cut up partridges and keep the whole warm. Prepare a partridge quenelle forcemeat (No. 91) mold it with a tablespoon the same as explained in No. 733, and range these quenelles in a buttered sautoir, decorate with truffles and poach. Dress the partridges on a forcemeat foundation (Fig. 8) without the central support and garnish around with the quenelles, cover with a little supreme sauce (No. 547) serving a sauce-boatful of it separately.

← No. 2097 Partridges a la Soyer Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2099 Partridges Broiled—Colbert Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already on the fire, so half the recipe is cross-references to other numbers. Stripped down, it is a white braise: partridges cooked gently under fat pork, the birds jointed and held in a reduced, velouté-thickened sauce, garnished with poached quenelles.

The hinge: do not overcook the birdsPartridge is very lean and the breast dries out badly past medium. Young birds of about a pound take roughly 25-35 minutes in a covered braise; check the thickest part of the thigh and pull them the moment the legs loosen. The long finish of the dish happens in the sauce, not on the heat.
MeasuresHalf a pint is one cup in this book's American measure, so a cup each of dry white wine and stock, and a cup of clear gravy for the second stage. "Half a glassful" of Madeira is imprecise; a wineglass was commonly reckoned at about 2 fl oz, which would put this at roughly 1 fl oz, though the book does not define the measure.
Oven heat"On the side of the range or in the oven" means a bare simmer, not a boil. In a modern oven that is 300-325F with the pot covered, the liquid barely trembling.
Bards and the flat saucepanBards are thin sheets of pork fatback tied over the breast; unsmoked fatback or thinly sliced salt pork is closest, and unsmoked streaky bacon will do. The "flat saucepan" is a braisiere, a wide shallow pot; any heavy pan that holds three birds in one layer with a tight lid works.
Cut into five partsTwo legs, two wing-and-breast pieces, and the back. The broken carcasses then go back into the braising liquid to build the sauce, which is the whole point of jointing rather than serving the birds whole.
The sauce chainVelouté (No. 415) is a white stock thickened with blond roux; suprême (No. 547) is that velouté enriched with cream and reduced with mushroom cooking liquor. If you are not running a stockroom, make a small velouté from good chicken or game stock and finish part of it with cream for the suprême.
QuenellesThe tablespoon method gives smooth ovals shaped between two wetted spoons. Poach them in barely shaking liquid at about 170-180F; a real simmer breaks them. The truffle decoration is applied to the raw surface before poaching so it sets into the forcemeat.
The forcemeat foundationFig. 8 is a moulded socle, a decorative base of forcemeat used to raise the dish on a platter for service. It is nineteenth-century display cookery and can be dropped without loss; mound the pieces on a warm dish and ring them with the quenelles.
Birds and yieldThree dressed partridges serve three or four as a main course, more if the dish sits within a longer menu. Chukar or grey partridge behave much the same way; if you can only get quail, use six or eight and cut the braising time by half.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the repertoire he cooked over more than three decades at Delmonico's in New York, and this is a good specimen of how that kitchen worked: a French classical braise, coded by cross-reference to a numbered system of stocks, forcemeats and mother sauces so that any cook in the brigade could execute it without a discussion. The name honours Moliere, part of a long habit of attaching writers, singers and statesmen to garnishes; unlike a la Soyer, the preceding entry, which points to a real cook, the literary dedications are generally decorative rather than descriptive, and no fixed garnish is reliably attached to them across nineteenth-century menus. Partridge itself was a restaurant luxury of the American season, shot rather than farmed, and the elaborate treatment here reflects how a small, lean, easily ruined bird was made to stretch: three birds jointed into fifteen pieces, the carcasses cooked back into the sauce, and the plate filled out with quenelles of the same meat.