No. 2416

Aspic of Partridge—Minion Fillets

Aspic de Filets Mignons de Perdreau

Pare twelve partridge minion fillets; remove all sinews and thin skin and streak them with semicircles of truffles graduated in size; season and bend their thin ends in one direction; poach in a little butter and lemon juice; drain and when cold pare nicely. Incrust a plain cylindrical mold (Fig. 150) in ice. Decorate the sides on the top and bottom with an even chain of round pieces of truffle and red beef tongue, cut out with a tin tube an inch and a quarter in diameter; these pieces are to be dipped in half-set jelly and the red and black colors alternated, letting each chain be at an equal distance from the minions. Decorate the sides in the center as shown in Fig. 449, with the streaked fillets, dipping one at a time in half-set jelly and applying the streaked side to the mold; in order to succeed with this it will be found necessary to incline the mold on ice and turn it around as soon as the jelly hardens and the separate fillets are fastened on firmly. Coat this decoration with a thick layer of jelly and fill the mold with a partridge preparation a la Montgomery (No. 2548); leave it to cool on ice for one hour. When prepared to serve, dip the mold in hot water and invert the aspic on a bed of cold jelly on the bottom of a dish; fill the center with foies-gras balls three-quarters of an inch in size covered with brown chaudfroid (No. 594); on top place very white cocks'-combs brushed over with jelly and surround these with a chain of small truffles dipped in jelly; keep the aspic on ice for half an hour before serving.

← No. 2415 Aspic of Oysters The Cold Service No. 2417 Aspic of Pheasant →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's showpiece from Ranhofer's 1894 volume, built for a cold buffet and dependent almost entirely on temperature control. Nothing here is difficult; everything here is fussy.

The hinge: jelly at the right set"Half-set jelly" means aspic cooled to the point where it coats a spoon and drags slightly but still flows — roughly the consistency of raw egg white. Too warm and the truffle rounds slide down the mold; too cold and they sit in lumps that will show as bubbles when unmolded.
Minion filletsFilets mignons of a bird are the two small inner tenderloins lying against the breastbone, not steak. Twelve of them means six partridges; a dozen chicken tenders will stand in for practice, though they are blander and slacker.
Poaching the filletsThey cook in a few minutes in butter and lemon juice — barely a simmer, covered, until just firm. Because they are served cold and never reheated, bring them to at least 165F internally before chilling; game birds are not a place for pink.
"Incrust a mold in ice"Ranhofer means bedding the mold in crushed ice so the metal is cold enough for the jelly to grip on contact. You have to work at the mold continuously, tilting and rotating it as he says.
Cutting the decorationThe "tin tube an inch and a quarter in diameter" is a plain round cutter, about 3 cm. The red-and-black chain is truffle against cured beef tongue; pickled tongue or a firm bresaola gives the same dark rose without curing one yourself.
Cocks' combsA standard nineteenth-century garnish, blanched, peeled of their outer skin and simmered white in acidulated water. They are effectively unobtainable now outside specialist butchers.
Cross-referencesThe recipe leans on two other numbers in the book: No. 2548 for the partridge preparation a la Montgomery, No. 594 for brown chaudfroid. Without those the recipe is a shell -- read them first.
Unmolding and yieldUnmolding -- Dip the mold in hot water for three or four seconds only, wipe it dry, and invert at once; longer and the decoration melts into a smear.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is a record of what a great American restaurant put on the table for private banquets rather than a book meant for domestic cooks. Cold aspic work of this kind side of a chilled mold, so the pattern appears only at the moment of unmolding sture's garde-manger, and it is why the book carries hundreds of engraved figures like the Fig. 449 cited here: the pattern was the recipe, and words alone could not convey it. Partridge appears throughout the game chapters because wild birds were still sold openly in American markets in the 1890s; the market hunting that supplied them was curtailed within a generation. The garnish of foie gras, truffles and cocks' combs is a straightforward statement of expense, arranged so that every element of the cost is visible before anyone lifts a spoon.