No. 740

Rothschild Garnishing and Cocks'-Kidneys Villeroi

Garniture Rothschild et Rognons de coq a la Villeroi

This garnishing is composed of eighteen kidneys a la Villeroi, nine game quenelles made in a dessertspoon (No. 155), nine escalops of sweetbreads, nine escalops of smoked ham cut from the lean part and pared into half-hearts, nine escalops of foies-gras the same shape and size as the ham, and eighteen small whole truffles. Dress these ingredients in clusters, and serve with a brown Madeira sauce (No. 492), to which has been added a little game glaze (No. 398), one-half to be poured over the garnishing, and the rest to be served separately. Serve the cocks'-kidneys apart.

Cocks'-Kidneys Villeroi.—Simply poach the kidneys by putting them into a colander, and plunging into boiling water until they are poached and firm, then drain and cover with a Villeroi sauce (No. 560), let get cold, dip them in beaten eggs and bread-crumbs, and then fry to a fine color, and serve on a folded napkin with a bunch of fried parsley on top, and quartered lemons around.

← No. 739 Piedmontese Risot Garnishing Garnishings No. 741 Salpicon Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a composed garnish from the Delmonico's kitchen, meant to be arranged around a large roast or braised piece rather than eaten alone. Nearly all the work is in the cross-references; what follows is what a modern cook needs to reconstruct it.

The hinge: the sauce must set coldA Villeroi is a velouté-based sauce reduced until it coats heavily and sets on chilling. The kidneys are dipped, spread on a tray and refrigerated until the coating is firm to the touch before they are egged and crumbed; if the sauce is still soft it will slump into the crumbs and burst in the fat.
Cocks' kidneys, so calledRognons de coq in classical French kitchens are the testicles of the bird, not kidneys. They are not sold in general markets today; small poached sweetbreads or blanched cockscombs are the closest substitutes available.
Escalops and quenellesAn escalop here is a thin, evenly cut slice, trimmed to a half-heart with a cutter. The dessertspoon quenelles are shaped by scooping forcemeat between two wetted spoons, roughly two teaspoons of mixture each, and poached in barely trembling salted water until they float and firm.
Sweetbreads and trufflesThe sweetbreads are assumed to have been soaked, blanched, pressed and braised already, as in the book's earlier entries; raw sweetbreads sliced and dropped into this garnish will be spongy. Whole small truffles were sold preserved in tins in 1894 and jarred summer truffles are the nearest current equivalent, though far milder.
Game glazeA game glaze is game stock reduced to a syrupy, near-solid state. A spoonful of it stirred into the Madeira sauce is what distinguishes this garnish from a plain brown sauce, so a good demi-glace reduced with roasted game or duck bones is the substitution to make.
FryingDeep fry the crumbed kidneys at 350–365F, in small batches, only until the crumbs are golden; the interiors are already cooked. Fried parsley wants very dry sprigs and a brief moment in the same fat, and it spatters hard.
Foie gras availabilityFoie gras is restricted or banned in some jurisdictions and expensive everywhere. A firm chicken-liver parfait cut with the same cutter matches the shape and colour, if not the richness.
Yield and serviceThe quantities ” eighteen, nine, nine, nine, nine, eighteen ” divide evenly by nine, which suggests a platter for about that many, with two kidneys and two truffles apiece and one of each of the other items. The garnish goes in separate clusters around the meat rather than mixed, with half the sauce over and half in a sauceboat.

A Little History

Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some thirty years, broken by one interval away, as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house at full stretch: a garnish that is itself six separate preparations. Garnitures named for the Rothschilds were a nineteenth-century convention signalling truffles, foie gras and game — the most expensive things a kitchen could put on a plate — and the name attached itself to several unrelated preparations, sweet and savoury. Cockscombs and cocks' kidneys as a garnish are much older, common in French court cookery of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when a kitchen butchering birds by the dozen had them to spare; by Ranhofer's day they were an expensive rarity, and they had largely disappeared from restaurant cooking within a generation of this book.