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Coquilles of Chicken Au Gratin
Skin and totally bone the boiled fowl. Cut meat in half-inch pieces and keep on a plate. Mix in a saucepan two tablespoons melted butter and two and a half tablespoons flour, heat two minutes, then pour in a pint and a half white broth; sharply mix with a whisk two minutes and let reduce to half the quantity, mixing once in a while. Add six finely sliced canned mushrooms, one small, finely sliced truffle, half gill cream and one egg yolk; sharply mix while heating one minute. Then add chicken with two tablespoons sherry, half teaspoon salt, saltspoon cayenne and saltspoon grated nutmeg. Mix well, let cook five minutes, remove and evenly divide in six table shells. Sprinkle a little grated Parmesan cheese and divide half ounce butter in little bits over them. Set in oven ten minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A classic chicken velouté baked in shells, and a good use for the meat off a boiled fowl. Two things decide whether it works: the sauce must reduce far enough to coat, and it must not boil once the yolk goes in.
- The egg yolk is the hingeOnce the cream and yolk are whisked in, keep the sauce below a simmer for the minute of heating and for the five minutes with the chicken. If it boils it will curdle and turn grainy. Keep it at a bare tremble, off direct heat if your burner runs hot.
- Old measuresA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of cream is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so cayenne and nutmeg each go in at a quarter teaspoon. A pint and a half of broth reduced by half leaves about three-quarters of a pint, or roughly a scant pint of finished sauce base once the cream is added.
- White brothThis means a pale, unbrowned stock, ideally the liquid the fowl was boiled in, skimmed of fat. Use unsalted or low-sodium stock: reducing by half concentrates whatever salt is in it, and the recipe adds more later along with Parmesan.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, as was usual in books of this kind. Ten minutes only glazes the top, so a hot oven (around 425F) or two or three minutes under the broiler will do it. The filling is already cooked; you are browning cheese and butter, nothing more.
- Table shellsReal or ceramic scallop shells, the vessel that gives the dish its name. Individual gratin dishes or shallow ramekins of about 3/4 cup capacity work identically. Set them on a sheet pan so they do not tip.
- Truffle and canned mushroomsThe recipe calls for canned mushrooms, which are milder and softer than fresh; sliced fresh cremini sautéed in butter first are a fair substitute. The truffle is a garnish of aroma, not structure. A teaspoon of truffle paste or simply more mushroom will not break the dish.
- Boning the fowlAn older boiling fowl gives firm meat that holds its shape in half-inch dice. Meat from a poached supermarket chicken is softer, so cut it slightly larger and fold it in gently at the end rather than stirring hard.
- YieldSix shells, which is a first course for six or a light lunch for three with bread and a salad. Best assembled and browned just before serving; the sauce sets firm on standing.
Coquille is simply French for shell, and by the late nineteenth century the word had become a menu category rather than a single dish: any cooked meat, fish or shellfish bound in a rich white sauce, heaped in a scallop shell, dusted with cheese and crumbs, and glazed. Coquilles St. Jacques is the version that survived into common memory, but the same formula was run through chicken, sweetbreads, lobster, salmon and leftover turkey, which is largely the point — it is an elegant way to serve small quantities of already-cooked meat. The base here is a velouté, one of the classic French mother sauces, enriched at the end with cream and yolk in the manner usually called à l'allemande. The instruction to "dress on a dish with a folded napkin" is a service convention of the era, commonly reproduced in books of this period.