No. 2367

Chicken Livers Surtout with Mushrooms or in Rice Border with Curry

Surtout de Foies de Volaille aux Champignons ou en Bordure de Riz au Kari

Cover the middle of a dish with a three-quarters of an inch thick layer of foies-gras forcemeat (No. 78) and poach in a slack oven. Fry some chicken livers in butter with a little blanched shallot and half as much minced mushrooms as there are livers; season with salt and pepper and dilute with Madeira sauce (No. 492). Dress these livers on the forcemeat surtout and sprinkle chopped parsley over; serve very hot.

In a Rice Border with Curry.—Make an Indian rice (No. 1872) border, dress on a hot dish and fill the center with fried chicken livers the same as the above, adding some curry powder.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's cross-references assume you own the whole book, and his vocabulary assumes a professional brigade. Two decisions carry the dish: how gently the forcemeat base is set, and how briefly the livers see the pan.

What a surtout isHere it means a raised centerpiece — a shaped platform of forcemeat set on the platter, with the garnish heaped on top. It is not a mold or a crust, and nothing is enclosed.
"Slack oven"About 275-300F. The forcemeat is being poached-set, not browned; if the surface colors or cracks you have gone too hot. A bain-marie in that oven is safer still.
Forcemeat No. 78Forcemeat No. 78 is the book's foies-gras forcemeat, called for here by name; its exact composition needs checking against No. 78 itself. A workable stand-in is a smooth chicken liver and cream mousseline, or a pate de foie gras loosened with cream and one egg per cup so it will set in the oven.
Madeira sauce No. 492A reduced brown sauce (espagnole) finished with Madeira. Use a good demi-glace with a splash of dry Madeira reduced into it; sweet Madeira will fight the livers.
Cooking the liversTrim the green-tinged bile spots and connective tissue, dry them well, and sear in hot butter for two to three minutes total. Poultry liver is a common carrier of campylobacter, so cook through to firm rather than serving it visibly raw inside — but the window between done and grainy is short.
Blanched shallotA quick dip in boiling water takes the raw bite out and keeps the shallot from browning in the pan. It is a small step with a real effect on the finished sauce.
ProportionsHalf as much minced mushroom as liver -- the original does not say whether by weight, volume or count. Cook the mushrooms until their water has gone before the sauce goes in, or the Madeira sauce will thin and slide off the forcemeat.
The rice border versionIndian rice (No. 1872) is a buttered rice preparation firm enough to hold a border -- check No. 1872 for the detail. A ring mould turned out hot is the simplest way to form it. Adding the curry powder to the butter with the shallot so it toasts briefly gives a less dusty result than stirring it in at the end.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. On the scale implied it would serve roughly six to eight as a garnished entree in a long service, or four as a substantial first course; about two livers per person for the smaller number.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how the kitchen worked: almost nothing stands alone, everything points to a numbered forcemeat, sauce or garnish elsewhere in the book. Surtout -- literally "over all" -- was also a dining-room word, describing the ornamental centerpiece that stood on a formal table, and in cookery it came to be used for a dish built up on a base so the garnish sat above the level of the platter. A large kitchen of this kind would have had chicken livers to hand from birds broken down for other purposes, and dressing them on a foie gras foundation sets the cheap trimming against the expensive one. The curried rice-border variant reflects the presence of commercial curry powder in American restaurant cooking by the 1890s, generally traced to the British Indian trade and treated in books of this period as a French garnish rather than as Indian cooking.