No. 2210

Border of Chicken Forcemeat Filled with Chicken Blanquette a la Toulouse

Bordure de Farce de Volaille Garnie d'une Blanquette de Poulet a la Toulouse

Raise the fillets from six young, fat chickens; roll them in a buttered sautoir. With the leg meats prepare a chicken and rice quenelle forcemeat (No. 79). Have a fancy border mold, butter it and fill it up with the forcemeat, place this border in a sautoir and poach for half an hour. Pare the fillet pieces, saute them in butter, drain this off and replace it by fat bechamel (No. 409), and minced truffles added to it; keep it warm in a bain-marie. Trim a dozen truffles into round shapes an inch and a quarter in diameter, cook them in a little Madeira, add some meat glaze (No. 402), and put into a bain-marie. Unmold the border, dress the chicken blanquette in the center. Cover with a Toulouse garnishing (No. 766), and on the top of the garnishing arrange the prepared truffles.

← No. 2209 Woodcocks Stuffed Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2211 Border of Fish Forcemeat a la Duchess with C →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional brigade, and half the recipe lives in cross-references to other numbers in The Epicurean. Here is what the page assumes you already know.

The hinge: poach the border, do not bake itA forcemeat ring set directly over heat or in a dry oven will curdle and weep butter. Set the buttered mold in a sautoir (a straight-sided shallow pan), pour in hot water partway up the mold, cover, and hold the water at a bare shiver — around 175-180F — until the center reaches 160-165F. Ranhofer's half hour suits a shallow ring; a deeper mold takes longer.
The missing recipesNo. 79 is a chicken and rice quenelle forcemeat, presumably pounded raw chicken and cooked rice bound with egg and cream, though you need the original to be sure. No. 409 is Ranhofer's béchamel, here called "fat", i.e. enriched. No. 402 is meat glaze, i.e. brown stock reduced to a syrup. No. 766 is the Toulouse garnish. Without these four you cannot follow the page; any modern equivalent will do.
Toulouse garnish, translatedClassically cockscombs and cocks' kidneys, small chicken quenelles, button mushrooms and truffle, all bound in a pale velouté or allemande. Combs and kidneys are not obtainable outside a specialist butcher; quenelles, turned mushrooms and a little truffle carry the dish.
TrufflesTwelve truffles trimmed to inch-and-a-quarter rounds, plus minced truffle in the sauce, reflects 1890s market prices, not ours. A single medium black truffle sliced thin, or good truffle butter stirred into the béchamel at the end, keeps the intent.
"Raise the fillets" and yieldSix chickens give twelve breast halves; the leg and thigh meat becomes the forcemeat. A whole-bird approach is only worth it if you also want the carcasses for stock. Ranhofer gives no yield, but a dish on this scale would serve a dozen or so as a middle course.
Rolling in a buttered sautoirThe first roll in butter is to coat the raw fillets, not to cook them. They are pared to shape and only then sautéed — gently, until just firm and barely 160F at the thickest point. Overcooked breast in a blanquette turns stringy and no amount of sauce hides it.
Bain-marie means holding, not cookingTwice in this recipe the bain-marie is a warm water bath used to keep components above 140F while the border poaches. A low oven with a pan of hot water, or a covered bowl over barely steaming water, does the same.
UnmoldingRest the poached border five minutes off the heat, run a thin knife around the flutes, invert onto a warm platter and blot any liquid before the blanquette goes in the well. A ring mold or savarin mold substitutes for the "fancy border mold."

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house's professional repertoire set down in French-titled numbered entries. Dishes built as a poached forcemeat ring filled with a white ragoût were a long-established form, going back to the Carême era: the border held its shape on the platter and could be prepared ahead, letting a garnished dish be presented whole. À la Toulouse is one of the standard garnish names codified in the Carême-to-Escoffier tradition, generally traced to the city's reputation for poultry, and it typically signals the pale, buttery register — velouté rather than brown sauce, cockscombs and kidneys among the trimmings. Those last two ingredients date the recipe more sharply than anything else on the page: they were ordinary market goods in 1894 and are curiosities now.