No. 2347

Shells of Frogs' Legs

Coquilles de Cuisses de Grenouilles

Fry in butter one pound of frogs' legs without letting them acquire a color; butter some shells (Fig. 438), bread-crumb the insides, and fill the bottoms with a cream bechamel (No. 411); place on top cooked and minced mushrooms, and over this the boned frogs' legs; cover with more bechamel, make another bed of mushrooms and frogs, and finish with bechamel; dredge the tops with bread-crumbs fried in butter, set them in the oven, and when very hot and nicely browned serve at once on folded napkins.

← No. 2346 Shells of Fish Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2348 Shells of Lobster →

For the Modern Kitchen

A gratin assembled in scallop shells, layered like a small lasagne of frogs' legs, mushrooms and sauce. The whole thing is built from components Ranhofer expects you to have already made, so read the cross-reference before you start.

The hinge: don't brown the legsFrogs' legs are lean and set quickly; taking any color on them means the flesh has tightened and will be stringy under the sauce. Sweat them gently in butter over medium-low heat for 3-4 minutes, just until the meat turns opaque and pulls from the bone.
BoningThe recipe cooks the legs on the bone, then asks for them boned. Let them cool a minute and the meat slips off the thigh and drumstick bones; the picked yield from a pound of bone-in legs is considerably less than a pound, so buy accordingly.
Cream bechamel (No. 411)Ranhofer sends you to a numbered cream bechamel elsewhere in the book; look it up before starting. Whatever the method, make it thick — nappe, not pourable — or the layers will slump and the shells will weep in the oven.
The shellsCoquilles here are real scallop shells or their metal and porcelain imitations, buttered and crumbed so the gratin lifts out cleanly. Ovenproof gratin dishes of similar capacity work; figure about 1/2 cup per portion.
Mushrooms"Cooked and minced mushrooms" means a dry duxelles-style mince — cook the moisture off in butter before it goes in, or the water will thin the sauce.
OvenNo temperature is given because the shells only need heating through and glazing. A hot oven, 425F, for 10-12 minutes browns the crumb topping without overcooking the assembled filling; the crumbs are already fried in butter, so watch for scorching.
YieldOne pound of legs fills about four shells, served as a first course. "On folded napkins" is period service for hot shells and small gratins.
SourcingFrozen frogs' legs, usually farmed and imported, are the practical option and are sold in pairs by weight. Thaw fully and dry them well before they hit the butter, or they will steam rather than sweat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a nearly complete record of the restaurant's repertoire, which is why so many of its entries are shorthand pointing at numbered sauces elsewhere in the book. The coquille — a savory mixture baked and glazed in a scallop shell — was a workhorse of the era's kitchens, an elegant way to stretch small quantities of expensive picked meat: the same section offers shells of fish and of lobster. Frogs' legs carried a particular cachet in American dining rooms of the 1880s and 1890s as a marker of French cooking, and Delmonico's is often credited with helping make them fashionable in New York; they were then still largely wild-caught from the lakes and marshes of the Midwest and shipped to eastern markets, well before frog farming supplied the trade.