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Supreme of Chicken, Calve
Singe, cut head and feet off three one-and-a-half-pound spring chickens. Remove legs from bodies, place on a plate and keep in icebox for to-morrow's luncheon. Carefully lift up, cut away wings and tear the skin from the breasts, season all around with a level teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Heat two tablespoons melted butter in a sautoire, place breasts in pan one beside another, briskly cook for two minutes on each side, then place sautoire in oven for six minutes, remove and keep hot.
Cut from a stale loaf sandwich bread six slices one-third of an inch thick, then cut each slice into heart shape the size of the breasts, toast to a nice golden colour, place on a hot dish, arrange breasts on top of toasts and keep hot. Peel, thoroughly wash and drain one pound fresh mushrooms, place in the sautoire, season with half teaspoon salt and cook eight minutes, tossing them once in a while, pour in one gill white wine and let reduce to a glace. Dress mushrooms in centre of chicken, mask surface of breasts with Bearnaise sauce, lay a very thin slice truffle on top of each and serve.
A Delmonico's-style plate reduced to its essentials: six chicken breast halves, a mushroom garnish, Béarnaise, truffle. Most of the translation work is in the vessels and the vanished small measures.
- Saltspoon and gillA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so the seasoning is a level teaspoon salt, half a teaspoon cayenne and a quarter teaspoon nutmeg for six breast halves. A gill is half a cup of white wine.
- SautoireA sautoire is a shallow straight-sided pan with a metal handle, i.e. an ovenproof skillet. The recipe moves it from stovetop to oven, so nothing plastic-handled will do.
- The oven is unspecifiedFilippini gives six minutes but no heat. For breasts this size a hot oven, in the region of 425F, is a plausible reading; check that the thickest part reaches 165F rather than trusting the clock, since modern chickens are bred with heavier breasts.
- Spring chickensThree birds at a pound and a half each are far smaller than a standard supermarket chicken, closer to a Cornish hen. Six breast halves still means three birds, and off modern 3 to 3 1/2 lb chickens those six halves will carry considerably more meat; the legs still go in the refrigerator for the next day as directed.
- Supreme means skin offThe instruction to tear the skin from the breasts is deliberate, not squeamishness: in this tradition a supreme is generally served skinned, with the sauce going straight onto the meat. Skinless breast dries fast, which is the argument for pulling it at temperature.
- Peeling mushroomsPeeling was standard when cultivated mushrooms arrived dirty and thick-skinned. Trim and wipe modern ones instead, and do not wash and drain them as written — waterlogged mushrooms will not reduce the wine to a glaze.
- Béarnaise is assumedThe sauce is cross-referenced, not given. Have it made and held warm off direct heat before the chicken goes in the pan; the whole dish is served hot and will not wait while you mount an emulsion.
- TruffleA very thin slice of black truffle per portion was a garnish of visual rank as much as flavour. A truffle-oiled mushroom cap or nothing at all is the honest substitute; the dish stands without it.
- YieldSix servings, one breast half on one heart-shaped crouton each, with the mushrooms heaped in the middle of the platter.
The International Cook Book was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its style shows the restaurant kitchen behind it: one continuous paragraph of imperatives, no ingredient list, and the assumption that the sauces live elsewhere in the book. Suprême in this tradition is simply the boned breast, dressed and sauced as the prestige cut, and serving it on a heart-shaped crouton was standard hotel presentation — the fried or toasted bread lifts the meat, catches the sauce, and gives the plate a shape. The instruction to set the legs aside for tomorrow's luncheon is the most revealing line on the page: an haute-cuisine garnish of truffle and Béarnaise coexisting with strict household thrift, which is exactly the audience these turn-of-the-century American books were written for.</p>