No. 2123

Quails a la Caprea

Cailles a la Caprea

Truss eight quails as for entree (No.178), after picking, singeing, drawing, and cleaning them well; stuff them with butter into which has been mingled salt, pepper, and lemon juice, then saute them in some butter; transfer to a saucepan lined with bards of fat pork, and cook with a very little white wine mirepoix stock (No.419); place around a bunch of parsley garnished with a bay leaf, eight ounces of lean bacon cut in quarter inch squares, and eight ounces of lean ham cut the same, also eight ounces of artichoke bottoms, the whole blanched separately, and four ounces of truffles cut as cloves of garlic. When the quails are cooked, untruss and transfer them to another saucepan, skim the stock, and pour the strained fat over the quails to keep them hot; now strain the stock itself, remove all the fat that is left, and add it to some espagnole sauce (No.414), and a little Madeira; season and boil it down to the consistency of a succulent sauce. Blanch four ounces of rice, cook it with very little unskimmed stock (No.194a), and when done place it in a flat bottomed border mold (Fig.139) having it carefully buttered, or if to unmold at once dip it merely into cold water; fill it very tight, unmold on a dish and on top of the border lay oval pieces of tongue, a quarter of an inch thick by three inches long and two inches wide; remove the centers, making the same shape oval only two inches long and one inch wide; on these lay the quails, glaze over with game glaze (No.398), and inside the center of the border dress the bacon, ham, artichoke bottoms, and truffles; cover with some of the sauce, serving more apart.

← No. 2122 Bustard Plovers a la Dumanoir Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2124 Quails a la Macedoine—Larded →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already simmering, so nearly every step points to another number in the book. Stripped of the cross-references, this is eight butter-stuffed quail braised briefly, set on a rice border with a ham-and-truffle garnish and a Madeira-spiked brown sauce.

The hinge: quail cook fastWhole quail are done in roughly 12-15 minutes of gentle braising, and a minute or two of coloring in butter beforehand. Held longer they go dry and stringy, and no amount of sauce recovers them. The breast should still be faintly pink at the bone.
Sourcing the birdsFarmed quail run 4-5 oz each, semi-boneless or whole, and are sold frozen in some supermarkets and fresh from game dealers and specialty butchers. Eight birds serve four generously as a main course or eight as the entree course Ranhofer intended. Modern quail arrive drawn and plucked, so the picking, singeing and drawing are already done.
Bards of fat porkSheets of hard back fat, cut thin, used to line the pan and shield the birds. Fatback from a butcher is the accurate substitute; thinly sliced unsmoked pancetta or a few sheets of caul fat will do the same job. Ordinary streaky bacon brings smoke the dish does not want.
The stocks and saucesMirepoix stock (No. 419) is, in Ranhofer's usage, a stock flavored with diced vegetables and a little wine; unskimmed stock (No. 194a) is stock with its fat left on, to enrich the rice. Espagnole is the classic brown sauce built on veal stock and brown roux. A good reduced brown veal stock, thickened lightly, stands in for the espagnole without embarrassment; game glaze (No. 398) is game or veal stock boiled to a syrup.
"Truffles cut as cloves of garlic"A shape instruction, not a flavor one: pare the truffle into small pointed wedges the size and form of a garlic clove. Four ounces of black truffle is a serious outlay now. Half the quantity, sliced, still reads correctly, and the dish survives with good preserved truffle peelings folded into the sauce.
Blanched separatelyThe bacon and ham dice are blanched to pull out excess salt and smoke, the artichoke bottoms to set their color and finish their cooking. Do them in separate waters as directed; the point is to keep the garnish clean-tasting rather than to save a pot.
The rice borderA flat-bottomed ring mold, buttered or dipped in cold water, packed hard with rice cooked tight so it holds a shape. A modern savarin or ring mold works, but four ounces of raw rice will fill only a small one. Pack it while hot and unmold immediately.
The tongue platformCured beef tongue, cooked and pressed, sliced a quarter inch thick and cut into ovals with a smaller oval removed from the center so each ring cradles a bird. Deli-sliced tongue is too thin; buy a piece. If tongue is unavailable, thick-cut cooked ham gives the same color and support.
Skimming, twiceThe strained fat is poured over the resting quail to keep them hot, as the text says. The remaining stock is then strained and defatted before it goes into the sauce.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of that kitchen at full stretch -- thousands of numbered recipes cross-referencing one another like a technical manual. Quail were a staple of American restaurant menus in this period, arriving in quantity from market hunters before the Lacey Act of 1900 and the bird-protection laws that followed began to shut down commercial traffic in wild game; today's quail are farm-raised, milder, and reliably tender. The construction here -- birds set on cut rings of tongue atop a molded rice border, garnish heaped in the well, sauce served both over and apart -- is a built, display dish of the kind that came to the table whole. The name is unexplained in Ranhofer's text, as many of his are; nineteenth-century French kitchen nomenclature attached place names, patrons and passing celebrities to garnishes freely, and the trail behind most of them has gone cold.