No. 2326

Chicken Quenelles a la Drew

Quenelles de Volaille a la Drew

Butter some oval molds three inches long by two wide and two and a quarter inches deep; decorate them with cuts of truffles and cover this with a layer of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), then poach in a slack oven. Prepare some forcemeat croutons so that when they are trimmed and fried they will be exactly the same size as the quenelles and each a quarter of an inch thick; these are to be made of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) and foies-gras forcemeat (No. 78), half of each, mixed well and rubbed through a sieve. Spread this on sheets of strong buttered paper and poach in a slack oven; when cold dip in beaten eggs and bread-crumbs, and fry to a fine color; drain, wipe and dress these around a croustade (Fig. 8) made of fine foundation paste (No. 135), fastened with paste on to the center of a dish, pouring a little supreme sauce (No. 547) around. Unmold the quenelles and lay them on the forcemeat croutons; fill the croustade with whole peeled truffles and channeled fresh mushrooms (No. 118); cover these garnishings with supreme sauce (No. 547); finish when ready with raw egg-yolks, cream and fresh butter, range some trussed crawfish on top of the garnishing, then serve.

← No. 2325 Woodcock Pudding Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2327 Chicken Quenelles a la Richelleu →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed entrée from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, written as a set of instructions for cooks who already had the numbered forcemeats, sauces and pastes on hand. Reading it means reassembling four or five separate preparations, and the timing hinges on the sauce.

The hinge: the supreme sauceThe finish with raw yolks, cream and butter is a liaison, added off the heat at the last moment. Once the yolks go in, the sauce must not return to a boil or it will curdle and break; hold it below about 180F and pour immediately.
"Slack oven"The coolest working heat of a coal range; period usage is loose, somewhere in the region of 250-300F. The quenelles and the sheets of forcemeat are being set gently, not browned. A low modern oven around 275F will do; the water bath is a modern addition, not something the text specifies.
The cross-referencesNos. 89 and 78 are chicken quenelle forcemeat and foie gras forcemeat, No. 118 is the mushroom preparation, No. 547 is supreme sauce, No. 135 is a stiff pastry "foundation paste" for the croustade. None of them are reproduced here; the dish cannot be attempted without those pages.
Forcemeat textureA quenelle forcemeat is pounded chicken breast with panada and cream, and it wants to be cold at every stage. A food processor does in two minutes what the mortar did in twenty, but pulse and keep the bowl chilled or the cream will break out as fat when it poaches.
The croustadeFoundation paste (No. 135) is a stiff pastry used for display bases; its composition is not given on this page. It is fastened to the platter with more paste and serves as architecture rather than eating. Modern practice would substitute a low bowl or a baked pastry case that guests can actually cut.
Truffle decorationThe "cuts of truffles" are thin slices stamped into shapes and pressed into the buttered mold, so they show through when unmolded. Butter the molds well and chill them before laying the truffle in, or the pieces shift as the forcemeat goes on.
Crawfish"Trussed" means cooked whole with the tail curled and tucked so they sit upright as a garnish. They are decorative here; boil them separately in court bouillon and add only at service.
Molds and yieldOval molds three by two by two and a quarter inches hold roughly 5 to 6 fl oz filled to the brim; small oval timbale molds are the nearest modern equivalent. The recipe gives no yield, but as laid out this is a garnished service platter for a multi-course dinner, not a plated main course.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some thirty years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it reads as the working reference of a large brigade rather than a household book: some 3,500 numbered items, each assuming the others. Dishes like this one, named for a patron or a guest in the French fashion of the period, were the ordinary currency of Delmonico's private dining rooms, where a name attached to a garnish was a form of flattery and a form of record-keeping at once. The identity of the Drew being honored is not documented in the book, and Ranhofer names dozens of such people without explanation. What the recipe shows plainly is the logic of grande cuisine as practiced in America at its height: a chicken quenelle forcemeat, a velouté-based sauce finished with a yolk liaison, truffles, foie gras, crawfish and a pastry plinth, all assembled at the last minute by several pairs of hands working from numbers on a page.