No. 2116

Plovers a la Parny—Breasts

Filets de Pluviers a la Parny

Raise the breasts from six plovers; pare, beat, salt and saute them lightly on the side that adheres to the bones; cover this side with a salpicon of fresh mushrooms mixed with a reduced, thick half-glaze sauce (No.413); spread a layer of quenelle forcemeat (No.91) on top and bestrew with finely chopped truffles; range them in a sautoir, pour melted butter over and ten minutes before serving, set them in a hot oven and baste at times with melted clarified butter. Drain as soon as they are done and dress in a circle on the edge of a low, carved rice foundation (Fig.9a); fill the inside of the circle with small turned mushrooms heads (No.118) mingled with espagnole sauce (No.414), reduced mushroom essence (No.392) and Marsala wine. Serve a sauce-boat of this brown sauce at the same time as the fillets.

← No. 2115 Plovers a la Stoughton Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2117 Plovers a la Victor Hugo—Breasts →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a Delmonico's kitchen composition built on a bird that no longer belongs to anyone's larder. The terminology is worth decoding, but the dish itself cannot be reproduced.

The birds are protectedPlovers elplalmated and their relatives are migratory shorebirds protected in the United States under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. In the United Kingdom most plovers are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, though golden plover remains a quarry species with an open season; sale is restricted. There is no ordinary legal supply of plover for the table in the US.
Market game is goneRanhofer's era assumed a game dealer who could produce six plovers on request. The commercial market hunting that made that possible was ended by law in the early twentieth century, which is precisely why this page reads as a period document rather than a shopping list. If you want a dish along these lines, work from a current recipe written for farmed quail or squab.
SalpiconA salpicon is simply a fine dice of one or more ingredients bound in a thick sauce — here mushrooms in reduced half-glaze, stiff enough to hold its shape on a small fillet without running.
Half-glaze and espagnoleEspagnole is the old brown mother sauce, built on brown roux and veal stock; demi-glace ("half-glaze") is espagnole reduced with more stock until it coats. Ranhofer cross-references these by number, as he does with components throughout the book.
Quenelle forcemeatA pounded, sieved forcemeat of poultry or veal with panada, egg and cream, used here as a layer that sets in the oven and holds the truffle. Like other fine forcemeats it is easier to handle and spread while cold.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, not a deep casserole. The fillets sit in a single layer so the butter can be spooned back over them.
The rice foundationFig. 9a refers to one of the book's carved socles — a moulded, dried block of rice used as an inedible plinth for presentation. It is a nineteenth-century garde-manger device, not a side dish.

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 long chapter on snipe, woodcock, quail and "small birds" shows how ordinary wild shorebirds and songbirds once were on an American luxury menu. Plovers reached city markets from market hunters, and a restaurant could count on them in season. The suffix a la Parny follows Ranhofer's habit of naming dishes for people and places, and generally tells you nothing about the cooking. Within a generation of publication the Lacey Act (1900) and then the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918) closed the market-hunting trade that supplied recipes like this one, and the whole category largely disappeared from American menus.