No. 2218

Boundins of Game a la Berchoux

Boudins de Gibier a la Berchoux

Cook on a slow fire half a pound of chopped leaf lard with a quarter of a pound of chopped onions, and let get cold. Have half a pound of cooked and finely chopped game meat and seven ounces of soaked and well-pressed bread-crumbs; pound both of these together and pass through a sieve; put it into a bowl and mix in gradually the onions and lard, also two gills of bechamel sauce (No. 409), seven raw egg-yolks, a quarter of a pound of chopped mushrooms, and truffles, some salt, prepared red pepper (No. 168) and nutmeg. Fill some ready prepared sheep's castings, three inches long and one inch wide, with this preparation--not too full--and plunge them into boiling water; prick them with a larding needle, and then broil them over a slow fire. Serve a Berchoux sauce (No. 434) separately.

← No. 2217 Boudins of Chicken with Montebello Sauce Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2219 Boudins of Game or Chicken Blood a la Victor →

For the Modern Kitchen

A white-boudin forcemeat built on a bread panade, enriched with rendered pork fat and yolks, and stuffed into sheep casings. The hinge is the poaching: rolling water will split the skins and curdle the yolks, so keep the water barely trembling.

Gills and quantitiesTwo gills of bechamel is one cup. The whole batch runs roughly two and a half pounds of forcemeat; how many three-inch boudins that fills depends on how loosely they are stuffed, but it is enough for six to eight as an entree.
Leaf lardHere it means the raw leaf fat itself, not the rendered product sold in tubs. Ask a butcher for leaf fat or fatback and chop it fine; sweating it slowly with the onions renders part of it and softens the rest without browning, which is what keeps the boudin pale.
Soaked bread-crumbsThis is a panade: crumb from a stale white loaf, crusts off, soaked in milk or stock and then squeezed hard. Dry packaged crumbs will not work, and the seven ounces is the weight of the crumbs as soaked and pressed.
Poaching temperatureTreat "plunge into boiling water" with caution: hold the water at 170-180F rather than at a rolling boil, and poach only until the boudins are firm and hot through, which at this size takes a matter of minutes. The needle pricks are there to let steam escape rather than burst the casing.
Broiling"Broil over a slow fire" means a cool side of a charcoal grill or a low gas flame, the boudins brushed with butter and turned often. They are already cooked through; the fire is only for color and a little skin. High heat splits them.
The cross-referencesNo. 409 is Ranhofer's bechamel, No. 168 his prepared red pepper, and No. 434 his Berchoux sauce. Any well-reduced bechamel, a pinch of cayenne, and a poivrade or sauce chasseur made from game trimmings will carry the dish.
Game meatVenison, hare, pheasant or partridge, already roasted or braised and cooled before chopping. Lean wild meat is why the recipe carries so much fat; a leaner substitution will give a dry, crumbly boudin.
CasingsSheep casings come salt-packed; rinse and soak them in several changes of cool water for an hour before stuffing. Fill loosely as directed, since the panade and yolks swell in the poach.

A Little History

The name honors Joseph Berchoux, the French lawyer-poet whose 1801 verse La Gastronomie did much to put that word into general circulation, and whose name nineteenth-century kitchens attached to a handful of game garnishes and sauces. The dish itself belongs to the older boudin blanc tradition, in which a pale forcemeat of white meat, fat, bread panade and eggs is bound without blood and poached in casings before finishing over the fire; Charles Ranhofer, who ran the Delmonico's kitchens in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, files it among the miscellaneous entrees along with a companion boudin made with game blood. Its presence in an American book is a reminder of how much of Delmonico's repertoire was straight Parisian charcuterie technique, and of a period when a restaurant kitchen could count on both wild game and a supply of prepared casings as a matter of course.