No. 656

Chicken Minion Fillets Garnishing

Garniture de Filets Mignons de Poulet

Pare the minion fillets by removing the inside nerve, and the fine skin which covers them, have them all the same shape and size, then cut on each minion five or six small crosswise incisions dividing them in equal spaces, and in these incisions lay small, round slices of truffles, half an inch in diameter and cut very thin. Lay the minions on buttered sheets, giving them the shape either of a crescent or else laying them straight without bending them, but they can also be rolled around a column mold and laid one beside the other, streak half of them with truffles and the others with tongue, and fill the inside of them with quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), place on each of those streaked with truffles an olive, and on those streaked with tongue a ball of truffles, half an inch in diameter, put them in a buttered sautoire, moisten with a little mushroom essence (No. 392), cover them with buttered paper, and let them poach in a slow oven. Use these minions for improving garnishings.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a component, not a dish: a tray of decorated chicken tenders meant to be arranged around a larger roast or entrée. Ranhofer assumes you already have quenelle forcemeat and mushroom essence on hand, so read those two headings before starting.

What a minion fillet isThe filet mignon de poulet is the small tapering strip lying under each breast, sold today as a chicken tender. One bird yields two, so any quantity of these has to be gathered from several birds, or bought as a package of tenders of matched size; Ranhofer gives no yield.
The "inside nerve"That is the white tendon running the length of the tender. Grip the exposed end with a paper towel, press the meat down with the back of a knife and pull; it slides out clean. Left in, it contracts during poaching and pulls the fillet into a hook.
The hinge: shallow incisions onlyThe crosswise cuts exist to hold truffle slices flush with the surface, so they need to be shallow rather than deep, and evenly spaced as Ranhofer says; cut too far in and the fillet is liable to open up in the pan. He gives no depth.
Slow ovenRead that as a low oven, somewhere around 275-325F. These are thin pieces of white meat covered with buttered paper and barely moistened; they are poaching in steam, not roasting.
TimingRanhofer gives none, and modern practice keeps it short. Tenders of this size are done at 165F internal in roughly 8 to 12 minutes; much beyond that they go dry and stringy.
Sautoire and buttered sheetsA sautoire is a shallow straight-sided sauté pan, wide enough that the fillets sit in a single layer without touching. The "buttered sheets" are simply greased baking trays used to hold the shaped fillets while you finish decorating.
Column moldAny smooth cylinder of the right diameter works: a wide-mouth jar, a cannoli tube, a length of dowel wrapped in foil. The fillet is draped around it so it sets in an even arc.
TongueThe streaks called for are cured beef tongue, cut for its deep pink colour against the black truffle. Delis that sell pickled tongue still carry it; failing that, any firm cured red meat sliced paper-thin gives the same visual effect, though not the same flavour.
Truffles and substitutionHalf-inch rounds of black truffle are what is called for; the recipe does not say whether fresh or preserved. Preserved peelings pressed together will not cut cleanly; a small cutter taken to a whole preserved truffle is the closest compromise, and a black olive round will stand in visually, though Ranhofer already uses an olive on half the fillets.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years at Delmonico's in New York, and its Garnishings section is essentially a parts catalogue: numbered components a large brigade could assemble into finished plates by cross-reference. Studding pale meat with disks of black truffle and pink cured tongue is pure nineteenth-century French service, where a garnish was expected to read as ornament rather than merely to taste good, and where a well-staffed kitchen could afford the labour of paring several dozen chicken tenders to identical shape. The instruction to use them "for improving garnishings" is telling: this preparation exists to be attached to something else, and Ranhofer expects the chef, not the recipe, to decide what.