No. 346

Small Individual Soup-Pots

Petites Marmites Individuelles

There are two different ways of serving these. The first by making the soup in small soup-pots each one containing one-half a quart or more, diminishing the proportions of meat, vegetables and liquid, either of water or broth, after the proportions indicated in the pot-au-feu (No. 342). The second is to serve the pot-au-feu when it is ready, with the contents, dividing it into small individual pots, making an equal division of the meats, vegetables and liquid, into as many parts as there are half quarts of soup; and divide as well the meats, vegetables, and liquid into small two quart pots, having the meats and vegetables the same size as for the pint ones; for the one or the other use only half the beef meat well pared; the carrots, turnips, and celery cut into cylindricals, and divided into small parts, and each chicken into sixteen pieces: (Before using the small stone pots, they should be lined with the fragments of the chickens and vegetables, aromatics and spices, and cooked in the oven for twelve hours, pouring at intervals boiling water into them, so that they remain always full, then washed well out before using.) After the pots are filled, pour over the very hot broth, adding a tablespoonful of braised cabbage and the leeks divided, then boil the contents for a few minutes, and just when ready to serve, add for each pint four marrow bones sawed into inch thick pieces. Dress them over napkins on a plate. Each guest should have his individual soup-pot containing a little over a pint, and serve at the same time slices of toasted bread or bread buttered and browned in the oven, the size being three-sixteenths by one and one-half inches in diameter.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is not a standalone recipe so much as a service instruction: Ranhofer assumes you already have a full pot-au-feu (his No. 342) simmering, and tells you how to break it down into single-serving pots. The hinge is proportion — every pot must get its fair share of meat, root vegetables and broth, cut small enough to look deliberate rather than like leftovers.

Half a quart, a pint, two quartsA half quart and a pint are the same thing, two cups, and he uses both words in one paragraph. The "small two quart pots" appear to be larger vessels for two or more diners; the finished serving he specifies is "a little over a pint" per guest, so plan roughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups of broth and garnish each.
You need the parent recipeNothing here makes stock. The broth, boiled beef and chicken all come from the pot-au-feu, so either scale that recipe down into individual pots from the start or make it full size and divide it. Half the beef, well pared, is all that goes into the pots; Ranhofer does not say what becomes of the rest.
Seasoning the stone potsThe parenthesis describes breaking in the small stone pots before use: pack them with chicken fragments, vegetables, aromatics and spices, set them in the oven for twelve hours, topping up with boiling water so they stay full, then wash them well. Ranhofer gives no oven temperature and no reason; the usual explanation is that it dries the clay gradually and takes the raw-clay taste out. Modern glazed stoneware or small enameled cast-iron pots need none of this.
CylindricalsCarrots, turnips and celery are trimmed into even cylinders with a tourné knife or a small round cutter, then cut into short lengths. It is purely visual, but it is the whole point of the dish — the garnish should read as identical pieces in clear broth.
Chicken into sixteen piecesA cooked bird broken into sixteen means small bone-in pieces, not carved slices. One or two per pot is the intent; a 4 to 5 lb chicken will serve eight to sixteen pots depending on how generous you are.
Cabbage and leeksThe tablespoon of cabbage is braised apart and spooned in rather than boiled in the broth from the start, which helps keep the liquid clear. The leeks, divided, go in at the same point, after which the assembled pot is boiled only a few minutes.
Marrow bonesFour inch-thick rounds per pint is a lot by modern taste; two is plenty. Ask the butcher to saw them, poach them separately so the marrow sets and does not cloud the broth, and add them at the last moment.
The croutons"Three-sixteenths by one and one-half inches in diameter" means rounds about 1 1/2 inches across and a scant 1/4 inch thick — cut from a baguette or stamped from sliced bread, then toasted dry, or buttered and browned in the oven as Ranhofer directs; he gives no temperature.
Final boil"Boil the contents for a few minutes" is only to bring the assembled pot up to serving heat. Longer and the tourné vegetables collapse and the broth goes cloudy.

A Little History

Petite marmite takes its name from the vessel: a marmite is the tall earthenware or metal stockpot of the French kitchen, and by the late nineteenth century the phrase had come to mean a clear beef broth served in the small pot it was cooked in, garnished with the boiled beef, root vegetables, cabbage and marrow bones of a pot-au-feu. It is generally traced to the Paris restaurants of the Second Empire and after, where the frankly domestic pot-au-feu was reframed as an individual service — the same boiled dinner, portioned and prettified. Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, includes it as a variation rather than a new dish, which is how The Epicurean (1894) works throughout: a numbered system of cross-references in which one foundation supports a dozen presentations.