No. 889

Partridge Croquettes with Game Fumet

Croquettes de Perdreaux au Fumet de Gibier

Cut half a pound of three-sixteenth inch squares from the breasts of some roast partridges, after suppressing the skin and nerves; spread half a pound of partridge quenelle forcemeat (No. 91), on a buttered paper to the thickness of three-sixteenths of an inch; poach this in a slow oven, and when cold cut it up into three-sixteenth inch squares. Have also eight ounces of mushrooms cut the same. Reduce a quart of veloute (No. 415), with a pint of game fumet (No. 397), and a pint of mushroom essence (No. 392); when the sauce is well reduced add to it the salpicon; put it back on to the fire, and stir to bring it to a boil, and just when on the eve of boiling, set it aside to get cold. Divide this into balls each an inch and a half in size, roll them on a table dredged with bread-crumbs, and form them into cork shaped pieces, then dip them in beaten egg and in bread-crumbs, fry in hot fat until a good color, and dress the croquettes on a folded napkin, garnishing them with fried parsley.

← No. 888 Lamb Croquettes a la de Rivas Hot Side Dishes No. 890 Pike Croquettes a la Romaine →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot always going, so this reads as a shorthand assembly of four other numbered preparations. The hinge is the binding sauce: it must be reduced far past pouring consistency and then chilled solid, or the croquettes burst in the fat.

The cross-referencesNo. 91 is a partridge quenelle forcemeat, No. 415 a velouté, No. 397 a game fumet, No. 392 an essence of mushroom. Without those pages the recipe is unbuildable as written; a good reduced brown game stock and a dark mushroom reduction will stand in for the last two.
SalpiconThe word simply means a mixture of small even dice bound in sauce. Here it is the partridge breast, the poached forcemeat and the mushrooms, all cut to the same size so no one element reads as a lump.
Three-sixteenths of an inchAbout 5 mm. The dice are cut small and to a uniform size so that they bind into a mass you can shape and no one element reads as a lump.
A slow ovenA low oven, somewhere in the region of 300F. It is poached rather than browned, so stop as soon as it is set and firm to the touch, a few minutes for a layer this thin.
The reductionA quart of velouté plus a pint each of fumet and mushroom essence is a full half-gallon going down to a paste stiff enough to slice when cold. Expect a long reduction over moderate heat, stirring often; the finished mixture should mound heavily on the spoon before the salpicon goes in.
Why it must not boil after the meat is addedWhy it must not boil after the salpicon is added -- a hard boil can dry and shred the diced partridge and the sauce may break. Bring it just to the shiver, as the recipe says, and pull the pan off.
Chill hardRanhofer says only "set it aside to get cold." Spread it in a shallow tray and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Warm or soft mixture will leak through the crumb coat within seconds of hitting the fat.
Frying360-375F, deep enough for the croquettes to float. The inside is already cooked, so you are colouring the crust and heating through, two to three minutes. Drain on paper rather than serving on a napkin if you would rather not risk it.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield. From a pound of meat and forcemeat plus half a pound of mushrooms bound in the reduced sauce, expect well over a dozen of the inch-and-a-half cork shapes.
Fried parsleyDry flat-leaf sprigs dropped into the same fat for a few seconds, until the sizzling stops and the colour is still bright green. Wet parsley will spit violently.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of that kitchen: some three thousand-odd numbered recipes cross-referenced to one another like a manual, which is why a single croquette calls on four other entries. The book files this preparation among its hot side dishes. Croquettes were also an obvious use for the trim of roast game, since a restaurant that sold whole roast partridge was left with breast trim and carcasses to turn into fumet. The technique itself is French and older than the book: a thick sauce used as glue for diced meat, chilled, shaped, crumbed and fried, a method usually traced to the earlier French repertoire and codified under this name in the nineteenth century. The "cork shape" was one of the standard croquette forms of the period.