No. 2283

Escalops of Pheasants with Olives

Escalopes de Faisans aux Olives

Raise the breasts of two raw pheasants, cut them in twelve thin escalops of equal thickness, oval-shaped and rather large, season and range them in a sautoir with clarified butter to stiffen them simply on one side, drain them on to a baking sheet covered with buttered paper and lay another sheet of the same on top; then let them cool under the pressure of a light weight. With the pheasant parings prepare a good forcemeat (No. 91), fasten on a round dish a rice croustade foundation cut into a ring, having it half an inch thick; take up the escalops one by one and with an oval pastry cutter slightly narrower than they themselves pare so as to have them all of even size. Cover the stiffened side with a thin layer of a preparation made with half puree of truffles and half puree of foies-gras mingled with a little melted glaze (No. 402) and a sixth of its quantity of the above raw pheasant forcemeat. Smooth the surfaces neatly and replace the escalops in the same sautoir as the butter; push this into a slack oven to poach the preparation and the escalops. Drain them off and dress in a circle on the rice ring fastened on to the dish, fill in the hollow center with a garnishing of large Spanish olives, glaze the escalops lightly with a brush and pour over the garnishing a little good Madeira sauce (No. 492) reduced with pheasant fumet (No. 397); serve a sauce-boatful of the sauce at the same time.

← No. 2282 Escalops of Lamb or Veal a la Habirshaw Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2284 Escalops of Sweetbreads a la Careme →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A late-nineteenth-century restaurant construction: pheasant breast medallions, sealed on one side, masked with a truffle and foie gras mousse, then gently poached and dressed on a ring of moulded rice. The hinge is heat control — the escalops are poached, not roasted, and a hot oven will curdle the mousse and dry the meat.

Slack ovenRanhofer's "slack" oven is the coolest working range setting; the book gives no temperature, so any figure is a modern guess. The point is to set the forcemeat topping without letting the butter in the sautoir sizzle; cover loosely and cook until the pheasant reaches a safe internal temperature (165F for poultry and game birds), which for thin escalops is only a few minutes.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow sauté pan, not a saucepan. Any wide skillet that holds twelve medallions in one layer without crowding will do, and it must go into the oven, so no plastic handles.
"Stiffen them simply on one side"This is a brief contact with hot clarified butter to firm the surface and give one flat face for the mousse to grip — no colour, no browning, perhaps 30-45 seconds. The pressed cooling under a light weight flattens the escalops so they cut evenly with the cutter.
The forcemeat and the glazeNo. 91 is one of the book's cross-referenced forcemeats, here made up from the pheasant parings; a food processor does in a minute what the original expected of a mortar. No. 402, "glaze," is stock reduced to a syrup — a spoonful of good demi-glace or reduced veal stock serves the same purpose, which is to bind and season the truffle-foie gras purée.
Truffle and foie gras puréeHalf and half by volume, slackened with glaze and stiffened with a sixth part raw forcemeat so it holds its shape when poached. Tinned truffle peelings blitzed with a mousse-grade foie gras or a good pâté are the practical substitution; the raw forcemeat is what keeps the layer from melting off, so do not omit it.
Rice croustadeA ring cut from a slab of rice cooked to stickiness, pressed half an inch thick and chilled — a serving platform, not a separate dish to eat. Short-grain rice cooked slack, spread in a tray, cooled and cut with two concentric cutters gives the same result. "Fasten" means fixing the ring to the dish so it does not slide.
Spanish olivesLarge green queen olives. Modern jarred olives can be assertively brined; if so, blanch them a minute in water and drain before saucing, or the Madeira sauce will taste of brine.
Pheasant fumetNo. 397 is a concentrated stock from the pheasant bones and trimmings. Roast the carcasses, simmer with aromatics, reduce hard, and use it to sharpen a Madeira sauce — this is what makes the plate taste of pheasant rather than of Madeira.
YieldTwelve escalops from two pheasants: six plates at two apiece as a course in a long menu, or four as a main course. Serve the reserved sauce separately in a boat, as directed.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years in the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house style exactly: a wild bird taken apart, its best muscle cut into geometrically identical medallions, and everything else — parings, bones — converted into forcemeat and fumet so nothing is wasted and the flavour is concentrated back onto the plate. Escalops masked with a forcemeat and poached rather than grilled belong to the French service of the period, when a dish had to survive the trip from kitchen to table and look composed under a ring of garnish. Pheasant was a fashionable game bird on American restaurant menus in these decades, before the market-hunting trade was curtailed by law; the olives, described as Spanish, point to the barrels of imported brined queen olives that were a standing item in high-end American larders by the 1890s. The layered numbering — forcemeat No. 91, glaze No. 402, sauce No. 492 — is a reminder that the book was written for cooks working in a brigade where those preparations already stood ready on the stove.