No. 643

Bouchees of Puree of Pheasants Garnishing

Garniture de Bouchees a la Puree de Faisans

Prepare a dozen puff paste bouchees (No. 11), cook them only a short time before they are needed so as not to be obliged to heat them over again. After they are emptied, keep them warm. Put into a saucepan a few spoonfuls of good pheasant puree (No. 716); press through a tammy (No. 170), and heat it while stirring well on a slow fire and incorporate into it a few spoonfuls of good game fumet (No. 397), reduced to a half-glaze, but be careful it does not boil; season highly and finish by stirring in a small piece of butter. Fill the bouchees with this puree, baste over with a little sauce and cover either with their own covers, or else with a round piece of cooked truffle cut out with a column tube (Fig. 168). Dress pyramidically on a folded napkin.

← No. 642 Beef Tongue Garnishing, Andalusian Tomato Sa Garnishings No. 644 Bourgeoise Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Ranhofer garnish rather than a dish in itself: a dozen small puff-paste shells filled with hot pheasant purée, meant to be ranged around a roast or served as a hot hors d'oeuvre. Almost everything here depends on cross-references to other numbers in The Epicurean, so the working version needs some filling in.

The hinge: do not let the purée boilThe hinge: do not let the pur hickened from the sieved game meat and finished with butter and reduced fumet. Ranhofer only warns that it must not boil; in practice hold it just below a simmer while stirring, and stir the butter in at the end off the direct heat, as boiling can make it separate or turn grainy.
BouchéesSmall round puff-paste cases with a lid cut in the top, baked, then hollowed out. Frozen all-butter puff pastry works: cut 2-inch rounds, score an inner circle for the lid, and bake at 400F until risen and dry through, about 18-20 minutes. Ranhofer asks that they be baked only shortly before service so they need not be reheated.
Pheasant puréeNo. 716 is a game purée of cooked pheasant meat, in the usual manner pounded with a binding of rice or bread and stock, then sieved. In a food processor, blitz the meat from one roast pheasant with 2-3 tablespoons cooked rice and enough stock to make a thick paste, then push it through a sieve.
Game fumet reduced to half-glazeA concentrated game stock cooked down until it coats a spoon and is faintly syrupy. Reduced brown chicken or veal stock, or a good demi-glace, stands in. A few spoonfuls is enough to loosen and season the purée without thinning it.
TammyA fine worsted cloth through which sauces were twisted by two people to force them smooth. A fine-mesh conical sieve and the back of a ladle achieve the same result.
\The purée is filling a pastry case that will be eaten in one or two bites, so it must taste stronger than it would on a plate. Salt, pepper, a little cayenne; taste hot, not warm.
Column tubeA small round cutter used to punch discs from a cooked truffle. Any plain ½-inch cutter, or the wide end of a piping tip, does the work.
Yield and dressingThe recipe makes a dozen bouchées, dressed pyramidically on a folded napkin; how many they serve depends on the rest of the service.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its structure reflects a professional brigade: recipes are numbered and cross-referenced so that a cook building a plate can be sent to the purée, the fumet and the pastry as separate operations. The whole book is organised that way.