No. 2339

Shells Benoiton

Coquilles Benoiton

Prepare the same sauce as for a la Villa (No. 2340), mixing into it a third each of whole braised chestnuts (No. 654), fine mushroom heads and whole small truffles; strew the tops with unsmoked beef tongue and green pistachios, both cut up in small one-eighth inch squares; then dredge with bread-crumbs and butter. Brown in a moderate oven for ten to fifteen minutes and serve.

← No. 2338 Salpicon of Chicken, Baked Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2340 Shells of Oysters a la Villa →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes this as an assembly rather than a recipe: everything goes into the shell already cooked, and the oven only heats the mixture through and colors the crumbs. Read No. 2340 first, since the sauce and its base come from there.

Coquilles are the vessel"Shells" means deep scallop shells or small ovenproof gratin dishes, one per person, filled and browned. Ramekins of about 1/2 cup work; the wide, shallow shape gives more crust per serving, which is the point of the dish.
Moderate oven350F. Ten to fifteen minutes is enough to heat filled shells through and set the crumb topping; if the tops are pale at that stage, finish under the broiler for a minute rather than extending the bake and drying the sauce.
Everything is cooked firstThe chestnuts are braised and the sauce is already finished; Ranhofer does not say how the mushroom heads, truffles or tongue are prepared, but the short bake implies they go into the shell cooked. Chill the filling slightly before topping so the crumbs stay on the surface instead of sinking.
"A third each"Most plausibly equal parts chestnut, mushroom and truffle within the garnish rather than a third of the sauce, though Ranhofer does not spell this out. He gives no quantities at all, so the amount of garnish and the number of shells are left to the cook.
Unsmoked beef tongueThis is plain boiled fresh tongue, not the smoked or heavily pickled deli product. Cooked tongue is sold ready to slice at many butchers; if you use a cured one, the dish will read salty against the sweet chestnuts. Cut the dice small, 1/8 inch, as specified, so the topping stays even.
PistachiosBlanch shelled raw pistachios in boiling water for a minute and rub off the skins to get the bright green Ranhofer wants. Roasted, salted nuts are wrong in both color and seasoning.
Truffles and chestnutsWhole small truffles were an ordinary luxury in Delmonico's kitchen and are not now. Preserved or jarred truffles are the closest honest substitute; a few drops of truffle-scented oil is a different dish. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts, warmed in stock and butter, stand in for No. 654 well enough.
Crumbs and butterFresh, fine white crumbs, tossed with just enough melted butter to dampen them, and a thin layer. "Dredge" here means a light even scattering, not a thick gratin crust that would bury the tongue and pistachio dice.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield. A single shell is the usual first-course serving; as a main course with bread and a salad, count on two shells a person.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and its cross-referenced structure is the reason a dish like this can be described in three lines: the sauce, the chestnuts and the base are all elsewhere in the book, and the cook is expected to know them. The name is generally traced to the Benoiton fashion of the 1860s, after Victorien Sardou's Paris comedy La Famille Benoiton (1865), which gave its name to a style of hanging hair ornament and then, as such things did, to garnishes and made dishes on French menus; by Ranhofer's time the label appears to have signalled little more than a particular set of trimmings. The trimmings themselves are the tell: chestnut, truffle, mushroom, tongue and pistachio are a cold-weather garnish palette, and the scattering of red-pink and green dice over a browned crumb top is as much about how the shell looked coming to the table as how it tasted.