No. 2200

Breasts of Woodcocks a la Diane

Ailes ou Filets de Becasses a la Diane

Raise the breasts from six well-cleaned woodcocks, remove all the sinews and skin and stiffen them while heating in a little butter; place them under a light weight. Make a dressing with the intestines, removing the gizzard and pouch, adding a little chicken liver and grated fat pork, chopped parsley and seasoning; fill some hollow crusts with this, pour butter over and poach in a slack oven; on each crust lay a woodcock breast brushed with game glaze (No. 398), then dress them in a circle, stick either a whole or half head in each crouton and fill the center with olive-shaped game quenelles (Fig. 83); cover with brown Perigord sauce (No. 516).

← No. 2199 Woodcocks a la Dumas Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2201 Breasts of Woodcocks a la Houston →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's game course written for a brigade that already knew what a croustade and a quenelle were. Read it as an assembly plan: four components made separately, then stacked.

The trail is the pointThe intestines of woodcock (the "trail") are traditionally cooked and eaten; the bird is reputed to have a comparatively clean gut, and only the gizzard and pouch are discarded, as Ranhofer says. If the trail is not fresh, or the birds have been long dead or badly shot, leave it out entirely and build the dressing on liver and fat pork alone.
Sourcing the birdsWoodcock cannot be bought in the United States. It is a migratory game bird, so the only legal supply is a licensed hunter's own bag, taken in season; commercial sale is prohibited. In Britain and parts of Europe woodcock is sold in season through licensed game dealers. Boned squab or quail breasts stand in for the structure of the dish, though not for the flavor.
"Stiffen" and the weightRaidir means to firm the flesh in hot butter without coloring or cooking through — thirty seconds a side. Pressing under a light weight while they cool sets them flat so they sit neatly on the crusts.
Slack ovenA slack oven is roughly 250-300F. The crusts are only being warmed through and the forcemeat set. Because the dressing contains offal, take it to 165F internally rather than trusting the low oven and a vague interval.
Hollow crusts and croutonsThese are croustades: rounds of crustless bread, hollowed, brushed with butter and dried crisp in the oven, or small baked pastry cases. Ranhofer's "crouton" that holds the head may be the same hollowed crust or a separate piece of fried bread; the text does not say.
Cross-referenced saucesNo. 398 is the game glaze — game stock reduced to a syrupy, coating consistency. No. 516 is Périgord sauce, a demi-glace finished with truffle and truffle essence, usually with Madeira. A well-reduced game demi-glace with chopped black truffle serves the same purpose.
The headsSplitting the head and serving it upright in the crouton is period presentation; the brain was eaten. Cooks today may prefer to skip it, in which case dress the breasts directly on the crusts.
YieldSix woodcock give twelve breasts — a first course for six at a formal dinner, or four as a main game course. Everything but the final saucing can be prepared ahead.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the compendium of thirty-odd years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and it belongs to a long run of woodcock preparations that reflects how highly the bird was prized on nineteenth-century restaurant menus. Garnishes named à la Diane — after the Roman goddess of the hunt — are conventionally attached to game, though in classical French usage the name is most often associated with a peppery poivrade-based sauce finished with cream and truffle; the sauce here is Ranhofer's Périgord. The insistence on using the trail is older than the restaurant tradition: woodcock and snipe were customarily roasted undrawn, the intestines spread on toast beneath the bird, and Ranhofer simply formalizes that into a forcemeat. Périgord sauce takes its name from the truffle country of southwestern France, and its appearance signals the top of the menu; by the 1890s truffles reached New York packed in tins and jars, which is how a Manhattan kitchen could serve this in quantity.