No. 813

Sandwiches of Chopped or Thin Sliced Chicken

Sandwichs de Volaille Hachee ou en Tranches Fines

Scrape some chicken breasts or else chop them up finely; mix this with some well seasoned mayonnaise (No. 606); spread this over slices of buttered bread and cover with another slice; press down, pare the corners as explained no No. 811, and dress on a folded napkin.

← No. 812 Barlow Sandwiches Cold Side Dishes No. 814 Game Sandwiches →

For the Modern Kitchen

A two-line recipe that assumes the rest of the book: the mayonnaise, the bread trimming and the presentation all live in other entries. Everything hinges on the chicken being cooked, cold and finely worked so the filling holds together rather than sliding out.

"Scrape" the breastsThis means dragging a knife or spoon edge across cold cooked breast meat to shred it into fine threads, a step Ranhofer uses for quenelles and forcemeats. A food processor turns it to paste; hand-shredding or fine chopping gives the texture intended.
Start with poached, not roasted, meatStart with cooked, cold meat -- the recipe does not specify, but cold cooked breast is what the mayonnaise and slicing imply. Gently poached breast, cooled in its liquid, stays moist enough to bind; dry roasted breast needs noticeably more mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise No. 606That is a classic hand-whisked oil-and-raw-yolk mayonnaise. If you make it rather than use a jar, use pasteurized eggs, since nothing in this dish is cooked afterward, and keep the finished sandwiches refrigerated until service.
"Well seasoned"Chicken and mayonnaise are both bland; the seasoning is doing all the work. Salt, white pepper, a squeeze of lemon and a little cayenne or mustard in the mayonnaise are consistent with the book's practice.
Paring the cornersThe recipe defers to No. 811 for this. Trimming implies a firm close-crumbed white loaf, thinly cut; trim after assembly, not before, or the layers will not line up.
PressingThe original says only to press down. Stacking the made sandwiches under a board and a light weight for a short rest compacts the filling so the cut edges stay clean.
The folded napkinA period service device: dressing cold items on a folded cloth napkin was standard presentation. Easily replaced by a doily or plain plate.
YieldThe original gives no quantities. As a rough guide, two chicken breasts finely shredded with about half a cup of mayonnaise will fill roughly eight sandwiches, giving sixteen to twenty-four trimmed pieces cut in halves or fingers.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its sandwich entries belong to the era when the sandwich was a buffet and supper-room item rather than lunch. They appear among the cold side dishes, alongside game and Barlow sandwiches, as things handed round at balls, receptions and after-theatre suppers, cut small and trimmed so that they could be eaten standing with a glass in the other hand. The chopped-chicken-and-mayonnaise filling is close kin to American chicken salad, which was already well established by Ranhofer's day, and a restaurant that poached and roasted birds in quantity would often have cold breast meat to use up.