No. 863

Cocks'-Combs Stuffed, Duxelle

Cretes de Coqs Farcies a la Duxelle

Prepare and cook the cocks'-combs the same as cocks'-kidneys (No. 864), cool, drain, and cut an incision in them filling it in with Duxelle (No. 385), mingled with a little chicken forcemeat (No. 89), cover them with a well reduced allemande sauce (No. 407), to which has been added a little jelly, let these get very cold, and then dip them into eggs and bread-crumbs, plunge in very hot frying fat, and fry till a fine color. Dress on folded napkins, and decorate with a bunch of parsley on top.

← No. 862 Celestines with Foies-Gras and Puree of Ches Hot Side Dishes No. 864 Cocks'-Kidneys Villeroi →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a Villeroi-style preparation in all but name: a cooked garnish, coated in a sauce stiff enough to set solid, then breaded and fried. Ranhofer assumes you already have four other recipes standing by, so the work is mostly in the components.

The hinge: the coating must be cold and firmThe allemande has to be reduced until a spoonful sets on a chilled plate, and the combs must be refrigerated until the coating is hard all the way through before breading. Sauce that is merely cool will slump off in the fat and the whole thing bursts.
Sourcing cocks' combsThey are still sold, mainly frozen, by halal and Chinese butchers and some Italian specialists; they are not a supermarket item. In Ranhofer's day they were a by-product of the poultry trade and readily had; today they read as exotic.
Preparing them (No. 864's method)Preparing them -- The classical treatment for combs is a brief scald, then rubbing in coarse salt in a cloth to strip the thin outer skin, soaking in several changes of cold water until they whiten, and poaching in a blanc — water with flour, lemon and salt — at a bare tremble until tender, which is a long slow business. They must never boil hard or they toughen and shred. Check No. 864 for Ranhofer's own instructions.
Duxelle (No. 385)Mushrooms and shallot chopped very fine and cooked in butter until all moisture is gone, seasoned, sometimes with a little ham or reduced wine. It should be a dry paste, not a moist mince, or the stuffing will weep into the coating.
Allemande sauce (No. 407)A velouté of chicken stock thickened with an egg-yolk and cream liaison, finished with lemon. Modern books tend to fold it in with the other velouté derivatives; once yolks are in, keep it below a simmer.
"A little jelly"Meat aspic or strong reduced stock jelly, added to make the sauce set solidly when cold. About a teaspoon of powdered gelatine bloomed and stirred into a cup of sauce does the same job, though the original relies on a well-clarified stock that gels on its own.
Chicken forcemeat (No. 89)Typically a quenelle mixture: raw breast pounded with egg and cream. A modern food processor does in two minutes what the original expected of a mortar and a tammy cloth. Check No. 89 for Ranhofer's exact proportions.
Frying'Very hot frying fat' means hot enough to set the crumb at once, in modern terms somewhere around 350–375°F; the interior is already cooked, so you are only colouring the crust, which takes a minute or two. Cooler fat lets the sauce melt before the crust forms.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives no quantities; this is a banquet course, not a plated portion. Serve immediately on a folded napkin, as the recipe directs — the napkin absorbs fat and was the usual presentation for fried side dishes of this period.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summary of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and pages like this one show how completely the American luxury kitchen ran on French classical practice. Cocks' combs and cocks' kidneys were prized garnishes in that tradition, appearing in the elaborate garnitures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — the combs valued for their gelatinous texture and pale, ridged shape rather than for any strong flavour of their own. Their presence in a book of this kind is a mark of thoroughness in using the bird: a large kitchen killing poultry daily produced combs and kidneys in quantity, and a cook who could turn them into a hot side dish for a formal dinner was demonstrating exactly the sort of resourcefulness the profession admired. The name of the finish, à la Duxelle, is generally traced to the mushroom preparation associated with the Marquis d'Uxelles, whose seventeenth-century cook La Varenne is credited with it; that attribution is traditional rather than firmly documented.