No. 2108

Pheasants a la Montebello

Faisans a la Montebello

Cut into quarter inch squares, three-quarters of a pound of cooked duck's livers, and a quarter of a pound of truffles, season with salt and pepper, add half a pound of butter and put this equally inside of two pheasants; truss them for an entree (No. 178), and cover with bards of fat pork; place them in an oval braziere saucepan (Fig. 134), and moisten with half a pint of champagne and a pint of mirepoix stock (No. 419). Cook on a slow fire or in the oven for three-quarters of an hour. Prepare a garnishing to be composed of escaloped and braised foies-gras, eighteen large truffles, fourteen double cocks'-combs, and fourteen fine cocks'-kidneys. Just when ready to serve drain off the pheasants and untruss. Have already prepared a conical-shaped piece of bread-crumbs, four and a half inches long by three inches wide, and eight inches high; made for the purpose of upholding the birds; form a hollow on each side near the top to enable the pheasants to be placed therein; fry this piece of bread to a fine color, and paste it on the dish. Place the birds in an incline inside this hollow space with the breasts uppermost, and then garnish all around with the truffles, livers and kidneys, so that the bread is completely covered; trim five skewers with some of the truffles and the cocks'-combs (Fig. 11); stick two of them in each pheasant, and one on the summit of the bread; cover the whole with espagnole sauce (No. 414) reduced with the essence of truffles, and serve more of it in a separate sauce-boat.

← No. 2107 Pheasants Adorned with Their Own Plumage—Roa Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2109 Pheasant a la Perigueux →

For the Modern Kitchen

A braised pheasant dish from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, built for a nineteenth-century service table: the birds are the smaller part of the work, and the fried bread socle and skewered garnish are the point. Most of it translates directly; a few components no longer exist in any ordinary market.

The hingePheasant is lean and dries out fast. The half pound of butter packed inside with the livers and truffles, plus the pork bards over the breasts and the covered braise, are all there to keep the breast moist. Do not shortcut any of the three, and pull the birds at 160-165F in the thigh rather than trusting the three-quarters of an hour.
Slow fire, in numbersA covered braziere on a slow fire corresponds roughly to a moderate oven, somewhere around 325F; the book gives no temperature and none should be read into it. Three-quarters of an hour suits two smallish birds; larger farmed pheasants will want longer.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of unsmoked pork back fat, tied over the breast. Sliced fatback or unsmoked salt pork (rinsed, since Ranhofer's would have been fresh) does the job; caul fat is a workable substitute.
Liquid measuresHalf a pint of champagne is one cup; a pint of mirepoix stock is two cups. Ranhofer's No. 419 mirepoix stock is a stock built on diced vegetables, ham and herbs with wine; a good brown poultry or game stock with a wine-deglazed mirepoix stands in.
Cocks'-combs and cocks'-kidneysBoth were standard garnish in this era and both are effectively unobtainable now. The "kidneys" of the period are the testicles, not the kidneys proper. Extra truffle slices and escalopes of foie gras carry the plate without them.
Duck's livers, escaloped foies-grasThe stuffing calls for ordinary cooked duck livers, diced small, not foie gras; the garnish calls for foie gras, sliced and braised. Keep the two distinct.
The socleThe conical support is bread crumb — the crumb of a large loaf carved to shape, hollowed on two sides, then deep-fried. Eight inches high is a banquet piece; a shorter block, or a plain platter, loses nothing but the display.
YieldTwo pheasants with this much garnish serve four as a main course, or six at a table with other dishes.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of the food he cooked for Delmonico's in New York, and dishes like this one show what a late-nineteenth-century American luxury restaurant borrowed wholesale from the French repertoire — the truffled game bird, the bread socle, the ornamental skewers or h telets whose only function was to make the platter look taller. The name is generally traced to the Napoleonic title Duc de Montebello, given to Marshal Jean Lannes in 1808, the name commemorating the 1800 battle at Montebello, and carried by his descendants through the nineteenth century; French kitchens attached noble and diplomatic names to garnishes freely, and the label tells you more about fashion than about any fixed set of ingredients. The cocks' combs and testicles in the garnish were unremarkable at the time, and they have since fallen out of the recipe's reach.