No. 2928

Poached Eggs a la Villeroi

Œufs Poches a la Villeroi

Poach seven or eight eggs just sufficiently not to have the whites break; when refreshed, pared and well wiped, dip them one by one into a thick Villeroi sauce (No. 560); range as fast as they are done on a small baking sheet, slightly apart, and leave until the sauce hardens, then detach the eggs from the sheet, suppress the superfluous sauce, and roll them first in fresh bread-crumbs mingled with parmesan, then in beaten eggs; lastly plunge the eggs, one at a time, into plenty of hot frying fat to cook to a good color; drain and dress in a circle on a thin bed of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) poached on a dish to prevent the eggs from slipping off; surround each one with a string of consistent tomato puree (No. 730), mixed with bearnaise sauce (No. 433). Serve at once.

← No. 2927 Poached Eggs a la Mirabeau Eggs & Omelets No. 2929 Poached Eggs a la Wright Sanford →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you have the rest of The Epicurean at your elbow; the numbered cross-references are the working part of the recipe. Everything here depends on the eggs being cold and firmly jacketed before they meet the fat.

The hinge: chill hard before crumbingThe hinge: let the coating set hard before crumbing -- "leave until the sauce hardens" means waiting until the sauce-coated eggs are firm to the touch, not merely until it stops running. Ranhofer gives no time or place; chilling is the practical way to get there. A soft coat will split in the fryer and the yolk will escape into the fat.
Villeroi sauce (No. 560)Classically a thick allemande or velouté finished with essences and bound rich enough to set when cold; check Ranhofer's own No. 560 for his version. Any thick, well-reduced, yolk-bound white sauce chilled to the consistency of soft butter does the same job.
Poach and refreshPoach only until the white is set firmly enough to handle without breaking, the yolk still soft. "Refreshed" means dropped into cold water, which stops the cooking and firms the white for handling; "pared" means trimming the ragged skirts so the egg is a neat oval.
Dry them properlyWet whites will not hold sauce. Blot each egg thoroughly on a cloth before dipping, and expect to work with cold, unhurried hands.
Chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89)A pounded chicken forcemeat, spread thin on the serving dish and poached until just set as a bed. It is structural, meant to stop the eggs rolling. A thin layer of set forcemeat from any modern recipe, or a stiff purée, serves the same purpose.
Frying fat and temperatureFrying fat -- "plenty of hot frying fat" means deep fat hot enough to colour the crumb quickly, one egg at a time, and no longer than that; the interior is already as cooked as it is going to get.
The garnishNo. 730 is a tomato purée reduced until it holds its shape; slackened with béarnaise it becomes a sauce choron in all but name. Pipe it in a ring around each egg rather than pooling it, or the crust softens immediately.
YieldSeven or eight eggs is a garnish course for four, or a light lunch for three or four with bread. Poach two or three spares, since some will tear at the paring stage.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York across two spells, roughly 1862-76 and 1879-96, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working system set down in print, which is why every dish points to a numbered sauce or forcemeat elsewhere in the book. The name Villeroi attaches to a family of French sauces and preparations often said to honour the ducs de Villeroy, and by the nineteenth century à la Villeroi had come to mean one specific technique rather than a flavour: coating a cooked item in thick reduced sauce, letting it set cold, then breading and deep-frying it, so the sauce is served as a hot interior rather than a pool on the plate. Sweetbreads, lamb cutlets and chicken wings all got the same treatment. Doing it to a poached egg, so that the crust conceals a soft yolk that spills when cut, is the trick pushed to its most fragile point, and it is exactly the sort of thing a large brigade with cold marble slabs and a standing fryer could turn out to order.