No. 2344

Shells of Chicken a la Shaw

Coquilles de Poulet a la Shaw

Cook two tender chickens, each one to weigh two pounds and a half, in a white wine mirepoix stock (No. 419), and when done strain the stock over and let get cold in this; then suppress the skin, fat and bones and cut up the meat into five-eighths inch squares. Cook the livers with the fat skimmed from the mirepoix stock and chop them up when cold; also chop up six hard-boiled eggs, the yolks and whites separately. Put the chicken meat into a sautoir with the chopped livers and eggs, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Place two ounces of butter in a saucepan with two ounces of flour, stir it well, then remove the saucepan from the fire and mix into it the stock from the chickens, having two gills of it; then boil it up, stirring continuously, and add a gill of cream; simmer the whole and thicken with six egg-yolks diluted with a little cream without allowing it to boil, rolling the ingredients into the sauce while tossing without using any spoon, and season properly; lastly add a glassful of sherry and half a teaspoonful of lemon juice; fill up the shells, dredge over parmesan cheese and color in a hot oven or under the salamander (Fig. 123).

← No. 2343 Shells of Beef Palates a la Mariniere Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2345 Shells of Chicken or Sweetbreads →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's coquille: poached chicken bound in a rich egg-yolk velouté, piled into shells and glazed. The whole dish stands or falls on the liaison, so read that point first.

The liaison must not boilSix yolks slaked with cream will curdle the moment the sauce simmers. Take the pan off direct heat, temper the yolks with a ladle of hot sauce, return it and hold it around 175-180F until it coats a spoon. Ranhofer's instruction to combine "while tossing without using any spoon" refers to folding the chicken, liver and egg into the sauce by shaking the sautoir, so the cubes stay whole rather than being mashed.
GillsA gill is half a cup. Two gills of chicken stock is one cup; a gill of cream is half a cup. With two ounces each of butter and flour, that gives a very thick base, which is intended — it has to hold the garnish upright in the shell.
Mirepoix stock No. 419A white wine mirepoix of this period is an aromatic braising liquid: root vegetables and herbs with meat trimmings, moistened with white wine and stock. A good unsalted chicken stock with a glass of dry white wine, a bay leaf, thyme and diced aromatics does the same work. Cooling the birds in their own liquid, as directed, is what keeps the meat moist.
Sautoir and shellsA sautoir is a straight-sided sauté pan. The "shells" are coquilles — natural or porcelain scallop shells — and gratin dishes or shallow 4-inch ramekins substitute directly. Fill them mounded rather than level, since the mixture will not spread.
Salamander, or a hot ovenIn Ranhofer's kitchen the salamander was an iron plate heated in the fire and held over the dish to brown it; the name now means an overhead radiant grill. Use the broiler, rack close, or a 450-475F oven. Either way it is a matter of two or three minutes to brown the parmesan; the filling is already cooked and reheating it hard will split the sauce.
The liversCooking the livers in fat skimmed from the stock is a thrift measure that also seasons them. Two chickens give two small livers, which is not much; buying an extra 3-4 ounces of chicken liver is closer to the intended proportion. Cook them through and chop only once cold, or they smear.
ChickensTwo birds at 2 1/2 lb each is roughly the modern 5 lb of whole chicken and yields about 2 lb of picked meat. Cut it into generous 5/8-inch dice; anything finer disappears into the sauce.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield; the quantity should fill roughly eight to ten standard coquilles, so figure on eight as an entrée course or six as a lunch dish. It reheats poorly once glazed, so fill the shells ahead and brown them to order.

A Little History

This is No. 2344 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium of the food he served during his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. Coquilles — dishes cooked or reheated in a scallop shell, breadcrumbed or cheesed and glazed — were a standard way for a nineteenth-century kitchen to turn cooked meat, sweetbreads, oysters or fish into a presentable individual entrée, and Ranhofer gives a long run of them in sequence; the very next entry offers the same treatment for chicken or sweetbreads. Dishes "à la" a surname are scattered throughout the book and generally commemorate a Delmonico's patron or a private dinner rather than any regional tradition, though Ranhofer rarely says who was meant, and the Shaw here is not identified. What the recipe does document precisely is the house economy of a great kitchen: the birds are poached in an aromatic wine stock, that stock becomes the sauce, and the fat skimmed off it fries the livers.