No. 2258

Chicken Cutlets a la Clarence

Cotelettes de Poulet a la Clarence

Fry lightly in butter and lemon juice six well-pared chicken fillets cut into half hearts; place them under a weight to press lightly and divide each one into halves through the thickest part and trim neatly again. Bone the legs, suppress the nerves and fat and fry them in butter, then allow to cool; pound these with the same quantity of foies-gras from a terrine, adding about six egg-yolks and proper seasoning; pass this through a sieve and then mix in four tablespoonfuls of chopped truffles, a little melted glaze (No. 402) and a dash of cayenne and nutmeg. With this preparation cover both surfaces of each fillet, range them on a lightly buttered baking sheet and let get cold on ice; detach them from the sheet, heating it underneath, then roll each separate one in bread-crumbs, dip in beaten egg, roll once more in the crumbs, and smooth the breading with the blade of a knife. Plunge a few chops at a time into hot frying fat to brown nicely, then drain and insert a small favor frill (No. 10). Dress them in a circle on a forcemeat ring poached in a plain border mold (Fig. 139), hollowed on the top; in the center of the ring range minced fresh mushrooms thickened with well-reduced bechamel sauce (No. 409).

← No. 2257 Chicken Cutlets a la Adolphe Hardy Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2259 Grouse or Prairie Hen Cutlets a la Segard →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot always going and cross-references half the book. Here is what the shorthand means and where the dish can go wrong.

The hinge: chill it hardThe farce-coated fillets must be genuinely cold and firm before breading, or the coating slides off in the fat and the whole thing disintegrates. An hour in the freezer or two in the refrigerator is not too much; the recipe has the baking sheet itself set on ice, and a sheet pan in the freezer does the same job.
Cut and countSix chicken breast fillets, each pared into a half-heart shape, pressed, then split horizontally through the thickest part, gives twelve thin cutlets. That is a first course for six, or a main for three or four with the mushroom center.
The cross-referencesNo. 402 is meat glaze, glace de viande, stock reduced to a syrup that sets to rubber when cold; a spoonful of demi-glace or a commercial glace works. No. 409 is a plain béchamel, reduced here until it will hold minced mushrooms in a mound. No. 10 is a paper frill, purely decorative.
"Suppress the nerves"Boned leg meat carries white tendons and sinew that will not pound smooth. Strip them out with the fat before frying, or the sieved farce will be stringy.
Foies-gras from a terrineThis means cooked, seasoned foie gras terrine, not raw lobe, and it is already salted. Season the farce lightly at first and taste before adding more. Mousse de foie gras is the practical substitute.
Pounding and sievingMortar, then a drum sieve worked with a wooden pestle. A food processor followed by a pass through a fine tamis or a drum sieve gets there faster and gives the same smooth, pipeable paste.
Raw yolks in the farceSix yolks bind the mixture, and they are cooked only by the brief plunge in fat. Fry at 350-360F until deep gold and check that the center of the coating has set to at least 165F; a very cold cutlet browned in thirty seconds may still be raw inside.
The forcemeat ringA plain border mold filled with forcemeat and poached, then turned out and hollowed. A ring of pilaf, a savory bread croustade or simply a shallow round platter carries the cutlets just as well if you are not chasing the full Delmonico presentation.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and this is exactly the kind of entrée that made the restaurant's reputation: chicken breast disguised as a chop, sheathed in foie gras and truffle, crumbed, fried and stood in a circle on a poached forcemeat plinth with a paper frill on each. The technique is the classic French côtelette deception, in which cheap or shapeless meat is cut and dressed to imitate a rib chop, and it runs through nineteenth-century service cookery from Carême onward. Names like "à la Clarence" were dedications, usually to a patron or a colleague, and Ranhofer scatters hundreds of them through the book; a separate classical usage attaches Clarence to curry-flavored dishes, generally traced to the ducal title, but nothing in this preparation suggests curry, so the name here is most likely a house tribute whose subject is no longer recoverable.