No. 2456

Chaudfroid of Fillets of Pheasants

Chaudfroid de Filets de Faisans

This entree is suitable to be served at a dinner or a buffet. It is dressed on a socle composed of a wooden base, having in its center a support made in tiers, the whole being covered with white paper; on the very top of this there should be a hole intended to receive a hatelet. The platform of this support is ornamented with a small overhanging border made of modeling fat or cardboard. Detach the fillets from the breasts of three large, cooked and cold pheasants, leaving the upper part of the breast-the part against the fillet adhering to the frame-then cut them up and remove, first the skin and bones, then divide each one into parts on their length, and also divide each of the fillets in three, pare them in equal shapes and sizes and cut them square on one end so as later to be able to dress them standing upright. Pound all the parings of the breast meats with as much cooked foies-gras, then rub through a sieve, season this pulp and set it in a thin iron vessel to dilute with two gills of melted game glaze (No. 398) and four to five gills of brown chaudfroid (No. 594) in such a manner that when the preparation becomes cold it acquires a certain firm consistency. After it is smooth spread it on a baking sheet in even, thin layers, cover them very lightly with cold jelly, using a brush, and range on top the eighteen fillets in a straight line, one beside the other, pressing them down lightly; now cover them with a thin layer of the same preparation and let get thoroughly cold on ice. After removing it, cut with the tip of a small knife dipped in hot water, following the outlines of the fillets most minutely, then heat the bottom of the sheet with a wet cloth so as to be able to detach the cut-out pieces. Take them up one by one to smooth and stand them upright on another sheet on their square ends; let them get cold on ice once more for a quarter of an hour. Remove the fillets one by one and dip them into a fine flowing brown chaudfroid sauce (No. 594) in such a way that their size does not increase much, then return them to the same sheet just as they were before, (meaning upright), and let the sauce harden. With the same preparation cover the upper breast pieces, being careful that they assume their original size and shape, and smooth the surfaces nicely. When thoroughly hard dip these pieces into the same chaudfroid sauce to cover lightly and not allowing them to become misshapen. After the chaudfroid sauce is quite hard, take the fillets one by one and cut away the excess of sauce, then dress them at once upright on the lower tier, or more properly speaking on the wooden foundation (therefore around the central support); now dress the upper breast parts, also upright on the upper tier, leaning them against the support, and brush over lightly with a brush dipped in jelly both fillets and the others; surround the base with a cord of jelly pushed through a cornet so as to maintain the meats level, and also surround this base with chopped jelly, laying over a chain of small paper cases filled with truffles masked in chaudfroid. On the extreme top of the support stick a small hatelet into the hole made for the purpose. Keep the entree cold till needed.

← No. 2455 Chaudfroid of Partridges a la Beatrice The Cold Service No. 2457 Chaudfroid of Prairie Hen-Grouse →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full pièce montée from the Delmonico's kitchen: three birds reduced to eighteen glazed fillets standing upright on a tiered plinth. The work is in the coating, not the cooking, and everything hinges on the temperature of the chaudfroid sauce.

The hinge: coating temperatureBrown chaudfroid must be worked at the point where it flows off the spoon in a ribbon and just begins to cling. Ranhofer gives no temperature; the working point is judged by eye, at little above cool room temperature. Too warm and it runs off leaving bald patches; too cool and it goes on in thick lumps that destroy the pared shapes Ranhofer worked so hard to cut.
GillsA gill is half a cup. Two gills of game glaze is 1 cup; four to five gills of chaudfroid is 2 to 2 1/2 cups. The proportion is deliberately loose because the set depends on how gelatinous your game stock already is — test a spoonful on ice before committing the whole batch.
Chaudfroid and game glazeNo. 594 is a brown chaudfroid: reduced espagnole or demi-glace fortified with aspic so it sets firm when cold. No. 398 is game glaze, game stock reduced to a syrup. In a modern kitchen that means a well-reduced pheasant or veal stock, strained clear, with enough bloomed gelatine to set at a firm but sliceable consistency.
Socle, hatelet, modeling fatThe socle is the display stand — here a wooden tiered base under white paper, purely structural. A hatelet is a decorative silver skewer stuck in the top as a finial. Modeling fat is stiffened suet or lard used as an inedible sculpting medium; use the cardboard alternative Ranhofer himself offers, or omit the border.
The birdsRoast the three pheasants, cool them completely, and expect each breast to yield three neat pared pieces — eighteen in all, plus the trimmings and the upper breast portions that go on the second tier. Small birds will not give fillets of usable size.
The forcemeatPounding the parings with an equal weight of cooked foie gras and passing it through a sieve is a food-processor job now, but pass it through a fine sieve afterwards anyway — a single tendon will show as a lump under the glaze. Cooked foie gras terrine works; a good chicken-liver parfait is the honest substitute.
Cutting the set slabThe trick of setting the fillets into a thin layer of forcemeat on a sheet pan, chilling hard, then cutting round each one with a knife dipped in hot water is how the fillets get a seamless base. Warming the underside of the pan with a wet cloth releases them; work fast and return them to the refrigerator between stages.
Holding it coldThis is cooked poultry in a gelatine coating, assembled by hand over several hours. Keep every stage below 40F, allow no more than a short spell at room temperature for the final dressing, and serve the same day. Aspic is an excellent medium for bacteria if it sits warm.
YieldEighteen fillets plus the breast pieces serve about twelve as a cold entrée, or a good many more as one item on a buffet.

A Little History

Chaudfroid means "hot-cold": a sauce built hot in the classical way, then set with aspic and served cold, and the name is traditionally traced to an eighteenth-century French anecdote about a dinner interrupted and eaten cold at the table of the Maréchal de Luxembourg. Whatever its origin, by the time Charles Ranhofer compiled The Epicurean (1894) from his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, chaudfroid was the backbone of the cold buffet — the technique that let a kitchen send out game, poultry and fish already portioned, glazed and architecturally arranged, hours before the guests arrived. The tiered wooden socle, the paper cases of truffle and the silver hatelet on top belong to the era of the pièce montée, when the cold table was judged as much on its silhouette across the room as on its flavor. Pheasant was a fashionable American restaurant bird then, and the surrounding entries for partridge and prairie hen show how much wild and semi-wild game still passed through a first-class kitchen.