No. 2250

Croustades of Chicken Livers with Madeira

Croustades de Foies de Volaille au Madere

Prepare some croustades in channeled molds, buttered while cold and lined with fine foundation paste (No. 135), fill them up with buttered paper and rice, over this a round of buttered paper, cover and fasten on a flat of the same paste; pinch the edges and lay on the center a puff paste cover made in three layers an eighth of an inch thick and two inches in diameter for the lower one, an inch and a half for the second and an inch for the upper one; egg over and bake in a hot oven, take off the lid and empty out the insides. Fry some chicken livers in a sautoir over a brisk fire, drain off the fat and moisten with a little Madeira or Marsala wine, adding some small cooked mushroom heads and half-glaze sauce (No. 413). Fill the croustades with these livers and mushrooms, sauce over, replace the covers and serve.

← No. 2249 Crepine of Young Rabbits Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2251 Croustades of Lamb Sweetbreads—Small →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a pastry cook at your elbow and a stock pot already going. Strip that away and this is a blind-baked pastry case filled with sautéed livers in a Madeira pan sauce — an hour's work if the demi-glace is bought.

The hinge: do not overcook the liversChicken livers go grainy and bitter the moment they pass medium. Sear them in a hot pan for about 90 seconds a side, pull them out, build the sauce, and return them only to warm through.
"A hot oven"For puff and foundation paste together, read this as roughly 400-425F. The croustade shells want to be fully coloured and dry inside before you empty them, since they are refilled with a wet sauce.
Foundation paste (No. 135)A firm short lining pastry meant to hold its walls. Any sturdy savoury shortcrust works; puff alone will collapse under the filling.
Paper and riceThis is blind baking. Parchment and dried beans or pie weights do the same job; the second round of buttered paper over the rice keeps the pastry flat from fusing to it.
SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan, wide and shallow. The point is surface area — livers crowded in a small pan steam rather than brown.
Half-glaze (No. 413)Demi-glace: brown sauce reduced with stock until it coats a spoon. A good jarred demi-glace or a hard-reduced veal or brown chicken stock stands in. Do not substitute thin stock, which will soak the pastry.
Madeira or MarsalaUse a dry Sercial or Verdelho Madeira, or dry Marsala. The sweet cooking versions sold in supermarkets will push the sauce cloying against the richness of the livers.
Mushroom heads"cooked mushroom heads" means small caps, stems removed, cooked before they go into the sauce; butter with a little lemon is the usual way to keep them pale. Adding them raw releases water into the sauce.
Yield and serviceThe molds described give an individual portion each; figure one croustade per person as a first course, two as a light main. Assemble at the last minute — filled shells soften within a few minutes.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working repertoire set down in print, complete with cross-references to a numbered library of pastes and sauces. Croustades — edible cases baked or fried and then filled — were a staple of the nineteenth-century entrée course, valued because they let a small quantity of expensive garnish be served hot, individually, and with visible architecture; the tiered puff-paste lid here is pure dining-room theatre. Chicken livers in Madeira belong to the same French tradition that produced foies de volaille garnishes throughout classical cookery, and Madeira held its place in professional kitchens long after it faded from American drinking habits, prized for the way its oxidized, nutty character survives reduction. The recipe's terseness is telling: Ranhofer was writing for cooks who already knew what a sautoir and a half-glaze were, and who could be trusted to line a channeled mold without being told how.