No. 2306

"pain" of Pheasant with Cream

Pain de Faisan a la Creme

Pound the raw meats taken from a pheasant; season and rub through a sieve; return this to the mortar to pound again with four egg-yolks and three-quarters as much butter as there is pulp. Put this preparation into a thin iron vessel and beat it on ice to have it smooth and acquire a body, mixing in gradually about a gill of raw cream. Fry a small part of this in the oven in a diminutive mold to judge of its consistency and rectify it if found necessary. Prepare a montglas of cooked foies-gras, truffles and very red freshly cooked and tender beef tongue; put all into a small sautoir to thicken with two or three spoonfuls of good veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with pheasant fumet (No. 397) and keep it warm in a bain-marie. Butter the inside of mold (Fig. 150), using a brush dipped in clarified butter, and fill it up with the forcemeat; smooth the top, cover with a round of buttered paper, and poach it in a bain marie for twenty minutes or until firm to the touch. After removing it from the oven wipe dry and invert it on a rice croustade foundation (Fig. 9a) fastened on a dish; it should be an inch thick and a very little wider than the mold; fill the hollow in the twist with the montglas and cover the forcemeat lightly with a brush dipped in the same veloute sauce (No. 415). Send a sauce-boat of this same sauce to the table with the "pain."

← No. 2305 "pain" of Crawfish, Chartreuse Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2307 "pain" of Pike →

For the Modern Kitchen

A moulded, oven-poached game forcemeat from the Delmonico's kitchen, built on the same logic as a quenelle mixture: pounded raw flesh, yolks, butter and cream, lightened over ice. The cross-references to numbered sauces mean this was never meant to stand alone.

The hinge: test before you commitRanhofer's instruction to cook a small part of the mixture in a diminutive mould and judge its consistency is the heart of the technique. A forcemeat that is too loose weeps butter and collapses when unmoulded; too tight and it turns rubbery. Cook the trial portion as directed, taste, and rectify the mixture before filling the large mould.
A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz, about 120 ml. Add it gradually, as written — the emulsion breaks if the cream goes in all at once.
The butter proportionThree-quarters as much butter as sieved pulp, the recipe does not say whether by weight or by volume. A pheasant might give something in the region of 500 g of raw meat, and therefore roughly 375 g of butter, which is extravagantly rich by current standards; halving the butter gives a firmer, drier pain that still holds.
Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding, but the sieving still matters: pheasant has fine sinew that will not break down and shows up as threads. Push the purée through a drum sieve or fine mesh with a plastic scraper. The "thin iron vessel" beaten on ice is simply a metal bowl set over an ice bath, so the butter stays cold and the mixture stiffens as you work it.
MontglasA classical garnish of foie gras, truffle and beef tongue cut in short julienne or small dice, bound with a spoonful of sauce. The "very red" tongue points to cured or brined tongue, whose colour would have shown up against a white forcemeat.
The sauce referencesNo. 415 is Ranhofer's velouté, a white roux-based sauce made with veal or poultry stock; No. 397 is a pheasant fumet, a reduction of the bird's bones and trimmings. Roast the carcass and legs, simmer them down hard, and reduce that into the velouté — the fumet is what ties the sauce to the bird.
Poaching temperature and timeA bain-marie in the oven, with the water hot but never simmering; boiling water curdles an egg-and-cream forcemeat. The recipe gives twenty minutes, or until firm to the touch, for a small mould; check an internal temperature of 165°F rather than going by the clock, and rest before turning out.
The birdFarmed pheasant is milder and moister than the wild birds Ranhofer had; wild birds are leaner and stronger and will need the full butter. Either way use only the breast and thigh meat raw, and save legs and carcass for the fumet.
The croustade foundationA round base of cooked, compressed rice, an inch thick and slightly wider than the mould, made to keep the pain off the dish and give a hollow for the garnish. A shallow round of pilaf pressed into a cake tin, chilled and turned out, does the same job; it is decorative rather than essential.
YieldOne pheasant's worth of forcemeat would probably serve six to eight as an entrée, given how rich the mixture is; the recipe itself gives no yield.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in a run of moulded pains — of crawfish, pike, game — that show how thoroughly the restaurant worked in the French repertoire. A pain is literally a loaf: a fine forcemeat poached in a mould rather than shaped into quenelles, and a close relation of the modern mousseline. The garnish, montglas, is a classical combination of foie gras, truffle and cured tongue in julienne, generally traced to the household of a Marquis de Montglas, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. What the recipe reveals about the period is the sheer depth of the kitchen behind it: to make one dish you needed a standing velouté, a game fumet reduced from the same bird, cooked foie gras, truffles, brined tongue and a cook with the time to pound meat in a mortar and then beat it smooth over ice.