No. 936

Puree of Game Patties

Bouchees de Puree de Gibier

Prepare them exactly as for a l'Andalouse (No. 934), put into a saucepan some game puree (No.716), either of snipe, partridge, quail, pheasant or young rabbit; heat it without boiling over a slow fire, incorporating into it a few spoonsfuls of half-glaze (No.400); season, finish with a small piece of fine butter, garnish the patties, dress and serve very hot.

← No. 935 Crawfish, Crab, Oyster Crab, Shrimp or Lobst Hot Side Dishes No. 937 Fresh Mushroom Patties →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is one of a chain of cross-referenced entries: the shells and the method come from No. 934, the filling from No. 716, the sauce from No. 400. Read as a modern cook, it is an assembly instruction for hot puff-pastry cases with a game filling.

What you actually needSmall baked puff-pastry cases (bouchées; conventionally a couple of inches across, and usually made with a lid that is lifted off and replaced, though this entry does not say so), a thick game purée, and demi-glace. All three can be made or bought separately; nothing here is baked together.
Half-glazeRanhofer's "half-glaze" is demi-glace — brown stock and espagnole reduced together until it coats a spoon. A few spoonfuls is all that is wanted; it binds and glosses the purée rather than sauces it. A concentrated reduced brown stock is the nearest shortcut.
The hinge: heat without boilingThe purée is already cooked. Boiling it drives off the liquid unevenly and turns the meat granular and dry. Warm it gently, stirring, and keep it well below a simmer, as the original directs.
The butter goes in off the heatThe butter -- "Finish with a small piece of fine butter" is usually read as monter au beurre: swirl in cold butter at the very end, off or barely on the fire, so it emulsifies instead of splitting. The quantity is left to the cook; a small knob is all that is meant.
Game substitutionsWild snipe cannot be bought and comes only from a hunter; wild quail and partridge likewise, though farmed quail and partridge are sold commercially. Farmed quail, guinea fowl, pheasant, duck legs or rabbit all work. Rabbit is the mildest and the easiest to buy. A dark meat with some fat behind it purees better than very lean breast.
Fill at the last minutePastry cases soften within minutes of meeting a hot filling. Warm the empty shells through in a low oven and fill them as they go to the table.
YieldThe original gives none. A cup and a half of purée fills about a dozen small bouchées — two or three per person as a hot side dish or a first course.

A Little History

Bouchée means "mouthful," and the puff-pastry case of that name was standard equipment in a nineteenth-century professional kitchen, filled with whatever the larder had reduced to a purée or a salpicon. That is why Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades and published The Epicurean in 1894, writes the entry as a single sentence of cross-references — his readers were cooks who already had the shells, the demi-glace and yesterday's game on hand. The list of birds is a snapshot of what a fashionable American restaurant could get in the game season before the Lacey Act and later migratory-bird law closed the commercial market: snipe, partridge and quail.