No. 267

Puree of Capon a la Jussienne

Puree de capon a la Jussienne

Prepare a delicate quenelle forcemeat as for No. 89; put a pound of this into a buttered mold furnished with a socket, and let poach by placing the mold in a saucepan containing boiling water, to half its height, and placing it on the fire; at the first boil take it off, and set it in a very slack oven until poached; then unmold, and let get cold. Pound this preparation in a mortar, diluting it with two quarts of broth and one quart of veloute (No. 415); strain through a sieve or tammy, and heat up without boiling; just when ready to serve, stir the broth well, and season it with salt and nutmeg, adding three ounces of butter, working it in until it is all melted. Pour the soup into a soup tureen. For garnishing have some rice blanched and cooked in white consomme, also some croutons made of fragments of puff paste (No. 146), cut a quarter of an inch square; they should be cooked in a very slack oven, and when done, served separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classical bound purée soup from Ranhofer's cross-referenced system: it assumes you have already made a quenelle forcemeat and a velouté, then treats the poached forcemeat as the thickening body of the soup. The whole thing lives or dies on temperature control.

Never let it boilThe recipe is explicit: heat it up without boiling. A boil risks throwing the pounded forcemeat into grains that no amount of straining will fix, and the finishing butter will separate. Hold it well below a simmer from the moment the puree goes in.
CaponA capon is a castrated cockerel, fattier and more tender than a hen, and harder to find now, though still sold by some butchers and around the holidays. A 4-5 lb roasting chicken is the usual substitute; use the breast meat for the forcemeat and the carcass and legs toward the broth.
"A very slack oven"About 250-275F. It is used twice here, once to finish poaching the forcemeat gently and once to dry the puff-paste croutons without colouring them. A modern oven's lowest setting with the door cracked is close enough.
The mold with a socketA tube or ring mold, buttered, set in a bain-marie of boiling water reaching halfway up. The central tube lets heat into the middle so the forcemeat sets evenly rather than overcooking at the edge.
Mortar and tammyPounding in a mortar and pushing through a tammy cloth is now a food processor followed by a fine chinois or drum sieve. Do not skip the straining stage; the silky texture is the entire point of a purée in this style.
VeloutéRanhofer's No. 415 is a white stock thickened with a blond roux and simmered until clean, not a modern quick sauce. A quart of it is a substantial amount, so make it a day ahead.
Mounting the butterThree ounces is six tablespoons, added just when ready to serve and worked in until all melted, as the recipe directs. Butter added early and held hot is liable to separate out as an oil slick.
Yield and serviceThree quarts of liquid plus a pound of forcemeat makes roughly ten to fourteen first-course portions. The original specifies that the puff-paste croutons, cut a quarter of an inch square, be served separately; the blanched rice cooked in white consomme is listed alongside them.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and its soup chapter is essentially the Parisian repertoire of the Second Empire transplanted to Manhattan. Purées built on pounded poultry forcemeat rather than on rice or vegetables were the expensive end of that repertoire: they required a forcemeat, a velouté and a consommé to be already in hand, which is why the recipe is written as a chain of numbered cross-references rather than a standalone dish. The name is generally traced to the rue de la Jussienne in Paris, itself a worn-down form of Sainte-Marie-l'Égyptienne, the church that once stood nearby; Parisian street and quarter names attached themselves freely to garnishes and soups in the nineteenth century, much as Crécy came to mean carrots in the recipe that follows this one. Whether any particular cook on that street invented anything is not documented.