No. 2109

Pheasant a la Perigueux

Faisan a la Perigueux

Have a good pheasant not too gamey; break the breastbone and fill the empty breast with liver baking forcemeat (No. 64), mixed with a salpicon of cooked truffles. Truss it with the legs thrust inside and cover the breast with a dry mirepoix (No. 419) wrap it in a half sheet of buttered paper tied on with a string. Fasten the pheasant on the spit and let roast for fifty to sixty minutes before a good fire while basting, then take it off, untie and dish it up, covering it with a Perigueux sauce (No.517). Serve some of the same sauce separately.

← No. 2108 Pheasants a la Montebello Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2110 Pheasant Truffled—Roasted →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a kitchen with a spit and a brigade to fetch numbered sub-recipes. The dish translates well to an oven, provided you keep the bird from drying out.

The hinge: don't overcook the breastFifty to sixty minutes suits a large bird turning before an open fire with constant basting. In a 400F oven a 2 to 2 1/2 lb farmed pheasant is done at 30 to 40 minutes, when the thickest part of the breast reads 155-160F. Pheasant has almost no intramuscular fat and goes to sawdust within minutes of that point.
Spit to ovenRoast on a rack in a shallow pan at 400F, turning the bird from one side to the other rather than leaving it breast-up, and baste with butter every ten minutes. The buttered paper is the period's version of a foil tent; parchment tied with string works exactly as described.
"Not too gamey"Most likely a bird hung only briefly rather than well aged. Farmed pheasant sold in supermarkets is generally hung little or not at all; a wild bird from a game dealer may have been aged a week or more, which can dominate the truffle.
Liver baking forcemeat (No. 64)A liver farce of the usual type, built on pounded liver with fat pork, a panada, egg and seasoning; the exact formula is in Ranhofer's No. 64. Any good liver farce or coarse chicken-liver pate mixture will stand in. Because it contains liver and egg, cook the stuffing through to 165F, which usually means baking it separately rather than trusting it inside a bird you want to pull at 160F.
Salpicon and mirepoixA salpicon is simply a small even dice, here of cooked truffle. A "dry" mirepoix is the aromatic mixture cooked down, usually with ham or bacon and herbs, until it is thick enough to spread; the recipe has it going over the breast as a blanket rather than under the bird as a vegetable bed.
Perigueux sauce (No. 517)Demi-glace finished with Madeira and chopped truffle. A modern approximation is a reduced brown veal or game stock, thickened lightly, with Madeira and truffle. Truffle at 1894 New York prices was expensive but ordinary in restaurant work; a small tin of truffle peelings and a little truffle butter gets you close for a fraction of fresh.
Breaking the breastboneCracking the keel opens the cavity the recipe wants filled with forcemeat. Press down firmly with the heel of the hand on the breast, or ask the butcher. The legs are then tucked inside the body rather than trussed out.
Yield and restingOne pheasant serves two generously, or three as part of a multi-course meal. Rest the bird ten minutes under loose foil before carving, and sauce it at the table so the skin stays intact on the way out.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its cross-referenced numbering system, forcemeat No. 64, mirepoix No. 419, sauce No. 517, is the book behaving like a professional kitchen manual rather than a domestic cookbook. A la Perigueux points to Perigueux, the capital of the Perigord in southwestern France, long the center of the French black truffle trade; by the nineteenth century the name attached in classical kitchen French to almost any brown sauce carrying chopped truffle and Madeira. Pairing it with pheasant follows the standard game logic of the period: a lean, lightly hung bird, a liver forcemeat to supply the fat it lacks, and truffle both inside and over it. That Delmonico's could put truffled pheasant on the spit as a matter of routine says a good deal about how far imported luxury goods traveled by the 1890s, when tinned truffles and foie gras moved from France to American restaurant kitchens as ordinary stock items.