No. 2202

Breasts of Woodcocks a la Mancelle

Ailes ou Filets de Becasses a la Mancelle

First clean and singe six woodcocks, then roast them; remove all the breast part, and cut off the remainder of the meat to pound with the same quantity of rice; obtain a puree, and combine it with a little espagnole (No. 414) reduced with game fumet (No. 397). Cut some thin slices of foies-gras, pare them into ovals, and dip in flour, then fry in butter; dress the fillets alternating them with the slices of foies-gras; pour into the bottom of the dish a little espagnole sauce (No. 414) reduced with woodcock fumet (No. 397) and Madeira wine, and to the remainder of the sauce add truffles and mushrooms cut in one-eighth inch squares, serving this separately.

← No. 2201 Breasts of Woodcocks a la Houston Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2203 Breasts of Woodcocks a la Vatel →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A Delmonico's game dish built in three parts: roasted woodcock breasts, a rice-and-game panada worked into reduced espagnole, and fried foie gras. The hinge is the roasting — woodcock breast is lean, dark and dries out past medium-rare.

Sourcing the birdsAmerican woodcock is a migratory game bird; it cannot legally be bought or sold in the United States, so the recipe is in practice open only to hunters. Quail or squab, roasted the same way, stand in reasonably for the technique, though neither has the liver-heavy flavor Ranhofer was after.
RoastingSix woodcocks are small birds; Ranhofer gives no time or temperature, only "roast them." A very hot oven, roughly 450F for something like 10 to 12 minutes, with the birds barded in a thin sheet of fatback, will leave the breasts rosy.
The trailRanhofer says only to clean and singe. Classical practice with woodcock is to leave the intestine in during roasting and spread the cooked trail on toast beneath the bird, though "clean" here suggests the birds were drawn.
Espagnole and fumetNo. 414 is the brown mother sauce, a brown stock thickened with roux; No. 397 is the concentrated game fumet the recipe calls for. A modern cook can reduce a good brown veal stock with the woodcock carcasses and a splash of Madeira to something with the same body and gloss.
The rice pureeEqual quantities of pounded leg and carcass meat and rice, pushed through a sieve; it functions as a thickener and flavour carrier, not a side dish. A food processor stands in for the mortar, but keep it thick enough to hold a spoon upright.
Foies-grasRanhofer asks only for thin slices, pared to ovals, floured and fried in butter; work over high heat for well under a minute a side. Raw foie gras renders fast; any longer and the ovals melt into the pan.
Assembly and yieldSix birds give twelve small fillets — a course for six at most in the Delmonico's context, four if it is the centerpiece. The garnished sauce with truffle and mushroom brunoise goes to the table in a separate boat, the plain reduced sauce under the meat.

A Little History

Ranhofer ran the Delmonico's kitchen in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that kitchen's working file — several hundred game preparations among them, of which woodcock alone accounts for a long run of numbered entries. A la mancelle points to Le Mans and the Sarthe, a region long associated in French cooking with rich poultry and game garnishes; the name in nineteenth-century menus generally signals a game puree bound with sauce, though the label was applied loosely. What the recipe really records is the market of its day: wild woodcock, snipe and plover were sold openly by New York game dealers in the 1880s and 1890s, arriving by the barrel from the Southern wintering grounds. The Lacey Act of 1900 regulated the interstate shipment of illegally taken game, but it was the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 that shut that trade down, which is why a dish that was routine restaurant work in Ranhofer's day is now, in the United States, effectively unbuyable at any price.