No. 854

Canapes of Game

Canapes de Gibier

Prepare slices of bread three-eighths of an inch thick, cutting them three inches long and two inches wide, pare them into ovals, make an incision all around by sinking the knife down to half the depth of the bread, fry them in butter, and empty them out. Have one ounce of cooked game, either snipe, plover, or partridge; one ounce of cooked mushrooms and one ounce of truffles, all cut in fillets one-eighth of an inch by one-half of an inch. Break up the game carcasses moisten them with Madeira wine and espagnole sauce (No. 414), and let it reduce well, then strain through a tammy (No. 170). Put it into a saucepan with the prepared salpicon, mix it, and fill the bread crusts with this preparation; lay over a few thin slices of foies-gras, cover these dome-shaped with game forcemeat (No. 75), and set them into a moderate oven, when done, brush over the tops a little glaze (No. 402), and put in the oven an instant to harden, then serve.

← No. 853 Canapes Brownson Hot Side Dishes No. 855 Canapes Lorenzo →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stocked larder, so this entry is mostly a set of cross-references. Stripped down, it is a fried bread case filled with a game salpicon, capped with forcemeat and baked.

The hinge: hollowing the croûtesThe incision scored to half the depth of the slice, made before frying, is what lets you lift out a lid and scoop a cavity once the bread has crisped. Cut it with the tip of a paring knife about a quarter inch in from the edge, and fry in clarified butter so the crumb browns without the milk solids burning.
Oven temperatureRanhofer gives no temperatures; a 'moderate oven' is conventionally read today as somewhere around 350°F. The filling is already cooked, so the bake is only to set the forcemeat cap — perhaps 10 to 12 minutes — followed by a brief return after glazing.
The cross-referenced componentsEspagnole (No. 414) is the classic brown sauce built on roux and brown stock; a well-reduced demi-glace stands in. Glaze (No. 402) is stock reduced to a syrup. Game forcemeat (No. 75) is a farce of raw game flesh with fat and egg, of the panada-bound type usual in the book. The sauce and glaze can be bought or made ahead; the forcemeat is a make-ahead job.
TammyA tammy (No. 170) is a fine worsted straining cloth, twisted between two people to force sauce through. A chinois lined with a doubled square of muslin does the same work.
PloverGolden and black-bellied plover are protected in the United States under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and cannot be legally taken or sold. In Britain the position differs: lapwing and grey plover are protected, but golden plover remains a quarry species with an open season. Snipe and partridge remain available in season, and farmed quail or squab give the right flavour.
Salpicon proportionsOne ounce each of game, mushroom and truffle is about three ounces of filling total; Ranhofer gives no yield, so judge the number of croûtes by how far the salpicon and its sauce will go. Truffle is optional in any practical sense; a spoonful of truffle-scented butter stirred into the reduced sauce does more than an underwhelming preserved truffle will.
The carcass sauceBreaking up the bones and simmering them with Madeira and espagnole is the step that carries the dish. Give it real reduction time — twenty minutes at least — until the sauce coats a spoon, or the filling will soak into the fried bread.
ServingThe book files these among hot side dishes, meant to appear in a long service alongside other plates. Ranhofer gives no number per person.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in print. A canapés here is a fried bread base carrying something rich. The dish also shows the thrift buried inside grand cooking: the ounce of picked game meat is simply cooked game, and the carcass is boiled down into the sauce that binds it. Wild snipe, plover and partridge were staples of the American restaurant menu in the 1880s and 1890s, sold openly by market hunters; the collapse of shorebird populations that followed led to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which ended the commercial trade in wild game birds in the United States.