No. 713

Puree of Chicken

Puree de Volaille

Cut off two pounds of meat from a cooked chicken, suppress all the skin and nerves, and pound the remainder with a piece of butter and two-thirds of its quantity of very consistent boiled rice. Strain through a tammy (No. 170), and set this puree in a saucepan, season, add to it two spoonfuls of good, well reduced and thick veloute (No. 415), and heat it without allowing it to boil, and without ceasing to stir; incorporate into it at the last moment two ounces of fine butter.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classical French purée meant as a component -- a bed, a filling for vol-au-vents or croustades, a garnish for eggs or poached fowl -- rather than a dish on its own. Ranhofer assumes you already have cooked chicken, cooked rice and a velouté in the kitchen.

Never let it boilThe pur e is held together by butter and chicken protein. Once it simmers the butter is liable to break out and the meat turn grainy; keep it well below a simmer, stirring constantly, and add the final butter at the last moment as Ranhofer directs.
What a tammy isA tammy (No. 170) is a stout woollen or linen straining cloth through which the pounded mixture is forced with a wooden spoon or twisted between two people. A food processor followed by a drum sieve or fine-mesh conical strainer gives the same result with far less labour.
"Very consistent boiled rice"Rice boiled down thick and stiff, close to a dry risotto or a rice panada. Wet, loose rice will slacken the pur e.
ProportionsTwo pounds of picked chicken meat to two-thirds that quantity of cooked rice, so roughly 1 lb 5 oz of rice by weight. Two pounds of clean meat means a 5-6 lb roasting chicken, or the meat from two smaller birds.
VeloutéVelout -- Ranhofer's No. 415 is his velout , in the classical sense of a white roux moistened with white stock and reduced; a well-reduced modern chicken velout serves the purpose, and it should coat a spoon heavily before it goes in.
"Two spoonfuls" is vagueThe measure is not defined here. Two generous tablespoons of thick velout is the sensible reading -- enough to loosen the pur e so it stirs smoothly, and no more.
SeasoningThe recipe says only "season." Salt and white pepper are the obvious reading, with nutmeg a common option in white pur es of this kind. Pounded cooked breast meat absorbs a surprising amount of salt; season after the velout goes in and taste warm, not hot.
YieldSomething over three pounds of finished pur e, going by the weights in the recipe -- enough for a dozen or so small pastry cases, or as a bed for eight to ten portions. It reheats only gently, in a bain-marie.

A Little History

This is entry No. 713 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous professional record of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. The purée sits in the Garnishings chapter between chestnuts and cucumbers, which tells you exactly how it was used: not as a course but as one of the interchangeable soft fillings and beds that classical service built plates around. The technique -- pounded meat extended with a starch binder, sieved, then loosened with a mother sauce and finished with raw butter -- descends from the French farce and panade tradition often said to have been codified by Carême, and the rice here does the job a bread panada does in a quenelle mixture. It also reflects a kitchen with no waste: two pounds of meat off an already-cooked bird, and a lot of arm work at the mortar.