No. 272

Puree of Grouse a la Manhattan

Puree de Tetras a la Manhattan

Roast three grouse for twenty minutes; cut off the fillets and break up the bones, putting them into a saucepan with four quarts of broth, adding a bunch of parsley garnished with bay leaf, half a pound of carrots, quarter of a pound of onions, and let simmer for one hour. Pound the fillets, add to it the same quantity of puree of sweet potatoes, and dilute all with the broth strained through a fine tammy, then return it to the fire in a saucepan to heat without boiling; season and stir into it just when ready to serve four ounces of fine butter. Make a garnishing with one pint of the soup; mix into a half a pint of cream, eight yolks and two whole eggs, and poach this in small buttered timbale molds (No. 5, Fig. 137), and cut crosswise before being put into the puree.

← No. 271 Puree of English Snipe, Plover or Woodcock a Soups & Broths No. 273 Puree of Lentils, Chantilly →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's game purée is a two-part construction: a thickened bird-and-sweet-potato soup, and a royale custard poached separately and sliced into it. Almost everything that can go wrong happens at the finish, where eggs and butter meet heat.

Never let it boil after the purée is assembledThe pounded fillets and sweet potato are bound with butter and served with an egg custard garnish; a boil will make the purée grainy and break the butter. Hold it just below a simmer, around 180F, from the moment it is diluted.
Roasting the grouse twenty minutesRanhofer gives no temperature; twenty minutes for three small birds implies a brisk oven and breasts still pink, since the fillets are then pounded and finish in the hot broth. Overcooked breast meat pounds to sawdust and dulls the flavour.
Sourcing the birdsWild American grouse is generally not sold in markets and usually comes from a hunter. Farmed pheasant, partridge or squab can stand in for the three grouse, matched by weight of breast meat, though the flavour is milder and less resinous.
TammyA tammy is a fine woollen or hair straining cloth, worked with two people twisting the ends. A chinois lined with a double layer of damp muslin does the same job, or pass the purée through a food mill and then a fine sieve.
Pounding the filletsRanhofer means a mortar worked to a smooth paste, then sieved. A food processor gets there faster; pulse the meat cold with a little of the broth, then push it through a sieve to catch sinew.
The royale garnishOne pint soup, half a pint cream, eight yolks and two whole eggs is a rich custard. Butter the timbale moulds, poach in a water bath at about 325F until just set, 20-25 minutes, cool completely, then unmould and slice crosswise. Cold custard slices cleanly; warm custard tears.
Proportions and yieldFour quarts of broth, plus equal parts meat purée and sweet potato purée, makes a large quantity of soup — a restaurant batch of many small portions rather than six bowls of supper.
Butter at the endFour ounces is a full stick, whisked in off the heat in pieces. It is the finish, not a cooking fat; add it after seasoning and serve immediately.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the Delmonico's kitchens for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire set down in French classical order — which is why the head of this recipe is Purée de Tétras and only the English gloss says grouse. The run of game purées around No. 271 and 272, snipe, plover, woodcock, grouse, reflects a period when wild birds were still a commercial commodity in American markets; the Lacey Act of 1900 and later state game laws ended that traffic, and the dishes went with it. What makes this one "à la Manhattan" is almost certainly the sweet potato, an American ingredient dropped into an otherwise wholly French structure of pounded game, tammy-strained broth and a royale garnish. Ranhofer used geographic epithets freely for such small domestications, and the naming habit tells you more about Gilded Age New York's appetite for a local signature on a French menu than about any documented origin.