No. 2237

Cases of Thrushes a la Diana

Caisses de Grives a la Diane

Split eight thrushes through the back, leaving on the breastbone and legs; stuff them with chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), add to this forcemeat a third of its volume of foies-gras from a terrine, mix well together and inclose a ball of the forcemeat an inch and a half in size in a bird, and place them in buttered oval tin rings, covering over with thin layers of fat pork, and cook them in a slack oven. Oil some oval paper cases, turn them on to a grater and lay this on a baking sheet, stiffen them in the oven, remove and line them with a light layer of the same forcemeat; place a thrush inside of each and push them into a slow oven for twelve minutes; as soon as done remove the pork, drain off the fat and cover with a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) and game fumet (No. 397); set the case inside of another cleaner and larger one, then serve.

← No. 2236 Cases of Thrushes Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2238 Casseroles of Lamb Sweetbreads a la de Luyne →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a set piece from Charles Ranhofer's Delmonico kitchen, and the obstacle is not technique but the bird itself. Song thrushes cannot legally be taken, sold or served in the United States or most of Europe, so the dish is now a reading exercise rather than a cooking one.

The birds are protectedThrushes — including the American robin, the veery and the wood thrush — are covered by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the United States, which makes it an offence to kill, possess or sell them or their parts. The European song thrush may still be hunted in season in some EU member states, but it is not among the species that may lawfully be sold, so there is no commercial source for eight thrushes.
Whole small birds and the lead questionEven where similar game birds are legal, birds taken with lead shot can carry fragments through the flesh, which is harder to detect and remove in a small bird served whole.
Foie gras from a terrineRanhofer means cooked, potted foie gras taken from a terrine mould, not raw liver. Production and sale of foie gras is restricted in some jurisdictions, which is a second sourcing problem in the same ingredient list.
The cross-referencesNumbers 89, 413 and 397 are separate recipes in The Epicurean: a chicken quenelle forcemeat, a demi-glace, and a concentrated game fumet. None of the three is spelled out here, so the page cannot be followed without the rest of the book.
"Slack" and "slow" ovenBoth terms in Ranhofer's usage mean a gentle heat, well below a roasting temperature — enough to cook the stuffed birds under their pork covering and later to set the forcemeat in the cases without colouring the paper. He distinguishes them loosely rather than by any fixed scale.
Caisses and the double caseThe caisses are oval cases folded from paper, oiled and stiffened in the oven so they hold their shape. The instruction to set the finished case inside a second, cleaner and larger one presumably conceals the marks cooking has left on the first, though Ranhofer does not say so.
If you want this style of dishUse a current recipe for a farmed game bird such as quail or squab, from a source that gives modern temperatures and handling for poultry forcemeats.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and this entrée belongs to the part of the book that assumes a luxury market in small wild birds — ortolans, larks, reed birds and thrushes all appear by the dozen. Songbirds had been prestige food in France and Italy for centuries, and the name à la Diane is a conventional garnish label invoking Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, applied across nineteenth-century menus to game preparations rather than to any single fixed formula. What dates the recipe most sharply is not its labour but its supply chain: market hunting of songbirds for the table was one of the practices that provoked American bird-protection campaigns in the 1890s and 1900s, leading to the Lacey Act and then the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which closed the trade Ranhofer had depended on.