No. 2125

Quails a la Mirepoix

Cailles a la Mirepoix

Bone the breasts from the inside of six small and singed quails. Shred finely into small Julienne, some onions, red part of carrots, tender celery stalks, and fresh mushrooms; fry all these very slowly with butter in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally until cooked; season and remove. Leave these ingredients to cool off partially in the saucepan, then put in two or three spoonfuls of glaze (No.398) barely melted so as to have a thick preparation of a proper consistency to roll into balls. Insert one of these balls into the breast of every quail, sew up the skin, truss and fry them for two minutes in a saucepan; season and moisten with a gill of Madeira wine; glaze over with a brush, and finish cooking them smothered. When the quails are properly done, drain off to untruss; lay each one in an oval china case with a part of their stock; cover with a little good, reduced, thick brown sauce (No.414) having it almost cold, and let this sauce become glossy for two minutes at the oven door; serve the quails at once.

← No. 2124 Quails a la Macedoine—Larded Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2126 Quails, Piedmontese Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows his numbered sauces, so the page assumes more than it says. The hinge is the stuffing: the vegetable julienne must be bound with enough meat glaze to hold a ball, or it leaks out of the boned breast during cooking.

Mirepoix here means julienne, not diceDespite the name, the vegetables are cut in fine matchsticks and sweated in butter until soft and sweet, not browned. Cook them slowly enough that they collapse without colouring; twelve to fifteen minutes over low heat is about right.
Glaze (No. 398)Ranhofer's glaze is veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a well-reduced homemade stock does the same work. Two or three spoonfuls is enough to bind the vegetables into a paste stiff enough to roll.
Brown sauce (No. 414)The thick brown sauce called for is an espagnole-type brown sauce, reduced. Use a reduced demi-glace, and note the instruction that it goes on almost cold and thick, so it clings rather than pooling.
A gill of MadeiraHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. Use a dry or medium-dry Madeira such as Sercial or Verdelho; the sweet styles will make the finished sauce cloying against the glaze.
"Smothered"Cooking à l'étouffée: lid on, low heat, the birds steaming in their own wine and juices. Ten to twelve minutes after the initial two-minute fry is enough for farmed quail, which run four to five ounces dressed.
Boning from the insideThe breast bone is lifted out through the cavity so the skin and outer shape stay intact, making a pocket for the stuffing ball. Sew with kitchen twine or close with a small skewer; a modern cook can simply truss the legs with string rather than using a trussing needle.
Oval china casesSmall oval porcelain cocottes or gratin dishes, one per bird. Any shallow ovenproof dish of similar size works.
"Two minutes at the oven door"On a coal range the mouth of the oven gave a burst of surface heat used to gloss a sauce without cooking further. A brief moment in a hot oven, or a few seconds under the broiler, does the same work: just long enough for the cold sauce to gloss without breaking.
YieldSix quail serve three as a main course, or six as a course in a longer menu.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and the quail chapter reflects a period when small game birds still arrived at market in quantity, shot wild and sold by the dozen. The mirepoix is traditionally said to take its name from the eighteenth-century Duc de Lévis-Mirepoix, whose cook is credited with the aromatic base, though the attribution is a kitchen story rather than a documented one; by Ranhofer's day the word simply signalled a butter-sweated mixture of onion, carrot and celery. What dates the dish more precisely is its architecture: a bird boned from the inside, stuffed with a forcemeat bound in meat glaze, finished under a mirror of brown sauce and served in its own individual china case. That is the grammar of grand-restaurant service in the 1890s, when a single course was expected to arrive plated and glossy at every seat at once. The wild quail of the American market trade have since given way almost entirely to farmed birds, which are milder and considerably more forgiving of a cook who overshoots the timing.