No. 2259

Grouse or Prairie Hen Cutlets a la Segard

Cotelettes de Tetras ou de Poulet de Prairie a la Segard

Braise the fillets from the breast of a grouse, remove the skin and nerves and chop up finely; add six ounces of butter, season with fine spices and mix in three tablespoonfuls of game cream forcemeat (No. 75); with this preparation shape some cutlets, dip them in beaten egg and breadcrumbs and fry in clarified butter over a good fire. Serve separately, but at the same time a tomato sauce (No. 549) mixed with half-glaze sauce (No. 413).

← No. 2258 Chicken Cutlets a la Clarence Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2260 Cutlets of Kingfish, Mayonnaise Mousseline →

For the Modern Kitchen

A croquette dressed up as a cutlet: cooked grouse breast is chopped, bound with butter and raw game forcemeat, moulded into chop shapes, crumbed and fried. The hinge is the ratio of fat to meat and the chilling — get either wrong and the cutlets slump in the pan.

Chill before you shapeSix ounces of butter to the fillets of one grouse is a very rich bind, and the mixture is only workable cold. Spread it in a shallow tray, refrigerate until firm, then mould the cutlets and chill again before crumbing; warm mixture will spread and burst its coating in the fat.
"Fine spices"Épices fines, a 19th-century French kitchen spice mix, usually built on white pepper with small amounts of nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, bay and dried thyme, though the proportions and even the ingredients varied from kitchen to kitchen. A pinch or two is enough for a pound of meat; Ranhofer gives his own proportions elsewhere in the book.
Braise means brieflyGrouse breast is lean, and darker in some species than others; it turns liver-like if cooked hard. Cook it just to firm, since it will be fried again inside the cutlet. The braising liquid is worth keeping to loosen the mixture if it seems dry.
Game cream forcemeat (No. 75)Raw game pounded with egg white and cream, in effect a mousseline. Along with the butter it binds the mixture, so the three tablespoons are best not left out; a plain panade of breadcrumb soaked in cream and bound with an egg yolk is the nearest substitute if you are not making the original.
Clarified butter, good heatWith the milk solids removed, clarified butter takes considerably more heat than whole butter before it burns. Shallow-fry in a generous depth over medium-high heat, turning once, three to four minutes a side for cutlets about half an inch thick.
The sauces"Half-glaze" is demi-glace. The recipe wants it combined with tomato sauce and served separately; a good reduced veal stock enriched with tomato passata gets you close.
Birds and the lawRuffed and sharp-tailed grouse are still legally hunted, but the greater prairie chicken of Ranhofer's menus has collapsed in range and is protected across most of it, with hunting seasons only in a few states. Farmed pheasant, guinea fowl or dark chicken meat behaves much the same in this preparation.
YieldOne grouse yields four to six small cutlets — a first course for two or three, not a main dish.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how the restaurant handled American game birds through an entirely French grammar. Prairie hen — the greater prairie chicken — came east by rail from the Midwest in enormous quantities in the second half of the century and was a fixture on grand hotel menus before overhunting and the ploughing of the tallgrass prairie all but ended the trade. The "cutlet" here is not a chop but a moulded croquette shaped to look like one, sometimes finished with a small bone or a paper frill pushed into the narrow end, a Victorian conceit that let a kitchen stretch two small fillets into a composed course. The dedication to Segard follows the book's habit of naming dishes for patrons, chefs and colleagues; Ranhofer rarely explains who they were, and most, like this one, are now unidentifiable.