No. 2565

Quail Pie

Pate de Cailles

Prepare a forcemeat as described in No. 67, and press through a sieve; mix into it a quarter of a pound of plain foies-gras cut in quarter-inch squares; have twelve small peeled truffles. Bone twelve quails, leaving them whole; season and fill with the above forcemeat, and in the center lay one of the truffles; enclose the contents well. Butter a low pie mold, line it with foundation paste (No. 135), and cover the sides and bottom with thin slices of fat pork; over this set a layer of the forcemeat, and then a bed of the quails on the bottom; on top of these place more forcemeat containing a salpicon of fat pork and red beef tongue, mixed with an equal quantity of the forcemeat, then another bed of the quails, and finish with forcemeat raised to a dome. Cover with a thin bard of fat pork, some bay leaves, and a flat of the same paste; smooth the summit; pinch all around and on top, and decorate the dome with noodle paste leaves; egg over twice, and bake the pie for two hours and a half; cool partly and then fill with jelly (No. 103) made of quail fumet (No. 397) and Madeira wine.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a full pâté en croûte, written in Ranhofer's shorthand: four of its components live at other numbers in the book and have to be assembled before you begin. Read it as an architecture diagram rather than a recipe.

The cross-references come firstNo. 67 is the forcemeat, No. 135 the foundation paste for raised pies, No. 397 a quail fumet and No. 103 the jelly, here made from that fumet. Nothing here works without all four prepared in advance; budget the better part of a day.
Boning the quailBoning twelve birds whole — out through the back, leaving skin and legs intact — is the labor of this dish. A butcher will do it, or buy semi-boneless quail, which come with wing and leg bones left in and stuff perfectly well.
Oven heatRanhofer gives none. A raised pie of this depth wants a hot start of about 425F for 15 minutes to set the crust, then 325-350F for the remainder. Two and a half hours is right for a mold this size; the forcemeat is done at 160-165F on an instant-read thermometer pushed to the center.
The vent is not optionalThe pie must have a hole in the lid, kept open with a paper or foil funnel, or steam will lift the dome and the liquid jelly will have nowhere to go later. Ranhofer assumes you know this; the text never says it.
Bards and fat porkA "bard" is a sheet of hard back fat cut thin enough to drape. Fresh unsalted fatback is what is meant, not bacon or salt pork — cured pork will make the whole pie salty. Caul fat is a workable substitute for the lining.
Foies-gras and salpicon"Plain foies-gras" here means raw or lightly cooked lobes, diced, not a seasoned mousse in a tin. A salpicon is simply an even small dice; the tongue should be cooked and cooled pickled or brined beef tongue.
Filling with jellyLet the pie cool until barely warm, as Ranhofer directs, then pour the Madeira aspic through the vent in stages, a little at a time, letting each addition find the gaps left by shrinkage. Jelly poured into a pie still hot will not set.
Timing and yieldThe pie needs a full day in the refrigerator for the jelly to firm before slicing, and it improves over two or three. Twelve quail gives a substantial cold buffet piece — twelve to sixteen portions cut in slices.
Noodle paste decorationThe leaves are cut from pâte à nouilles, an egg-rich dough stiffer than pastry so it holds its shape. The text sets them on the dome first and then eggs over twice.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked in his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this pie belongs to the section of cold showpieces meant to stand on a buffet or a dressed sideboard. Pâté en croûte of small game birds was a fixture of grand nineteenth-century service: the raised crust was as much a serving vessel and preservative as a food, and the aspic poured in at the end sealed the interior from air. Quail in Ranhofer's New York generally meant wild bobwhite, sold by the dozen in city game markets during the season — a trade that market hunting supported until federal and state law curtailed it in the decades after 1900. Anyone building this today is working with farmed birds rather than the wild ones he had in mind. The layered construction, with a truffle set in the center of each bird so that every slice cuts through one, is the period's characteristic delight in a cross-section that rewards the knife.