No. 2117

Plovers a la Victor Hugo—Breasts

Filets de Pluviers a la Victor Hugo

Remove all the skin from the breasts taken from seven plovers; streak the minion fillets rounds of truffles, pare the larger ones into half hearts rounded on one end and pointed on the other; place a minion fillet twisted into a half-circle on the edge of the round end of the fillet itself, and range these in a sautoir, cover with butter and cook in a hot oven, basting frequently while cooking. Prepare fourteen half heart-shaped croustades the same size as the fillets, made with very thin foundation paste (No.135) and fill with paper and rice; empty them as soon as done and egg over the outside, return them for an instant to the oven to color, and then fill them with a puree of mushrooms (No.722); lay one of the fillets in each and glaze over. Serve separately a brown sauce (No.414) with game fumet (No.397) and Madeira.

← No. 2116 Plovers a la Parny—Breasts Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2118 Plovers Broiled →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's plover dishes belong to a moment when small shorebirds were market game in New York and Paris. They are not obtainable now, and the reasons are legal rather than culinary.

Plovers are protectedGolden and black-bellied plovers, along with essentially every other native shorebird, are protected in the United States under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918; killing, buying, selling or possessing them there is an offence, and the market hunting that supplied Delmonico's is precisely what the treaty was written to stop. In Europe shorebirds are covered by the Birds Directive, though the European golden plover is among the species listed as huntable in some member states. There is no lawful commercial source in the United States.
Why they vanished from the tableMarket gunning in the 1880s and 1890s collapsed shorebird populations across the Atlantic flyway; the Eskimo curlew, heavily shot in the same trade, has not been confirmed alive since the 1960s and is presumed extinct. A recipe calling for seven plovers to yield fourteen small fillets shows how casually the birds were treated as a commodity.
No straight substitutionQuail or squab will not behave like plover: plover breast is darker and much more strongly flavoured, and the sizes differ, so the original's cooking times will not transfer. If you want the construction, work from a current game-bird recipe rather than adapting this one.
"Minion fillet"The filet mignon of a bird is the small inner tenderloin strip lying beneath the main breast muscle. Ranhofer studs it with truffle rounds and curls it into a half-circle as a garnish on the larger fillet.
Sautoir and "hot oven"A sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan, not a sauté pan with sloping sides. The recipe specifies only a "hot oven" and gives no temperature; the frequent basting is what keeps such small pieces of meat from drying.
Croustades filled with paper and riceThis is blind baking. The paste shells are lined with paper and weighted with rice so they hold their half-heart shape, then emptied, brushed with egg wash and returned briefly to colour. Dried beans or ceramic weights do the same job.
Fumet and glazingA game fumet is a concentrated stock made from the carcasses and trimmings, reduced hard and used to fortify the brown sauce. "Glaze over" here most likely means brushing the finished fillets with reduced meat glaze for shine rather than colouring them under a salamander.
ScaleFourteen fillets in fourteen croustades, meant as one course among many in a long service. The recipe gives no yield; at two fillets each it would serve about seven, and it is not a main 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 game chapters read as an inventory of what the American market once sold: plovers, snipe, reedbirds, rail, ortolans. Dedicating dishes to celebrated names was standard restaurant practice, and Victor Hugo, who had died in 1885 as the most famous writer in France, was an obvious name to hang on an elaborate garnished fillet. The technique here — skinned breasts studded with truffle, set in individual pastry cases over a mushroom purée, with a Madeira-and-game sauce served apart — is pure haute cuisine of its era, in which the bird is less an ingredient than an armature for truffle, pastry and reduction. The recipe's real historical interest now is as evidence: shorebirds appeared on restaurant menus in quantity until the market-hunting trade was closed down by a series of federal measures culminating in the treaty of 1918, and pages like this one are part of why it was.