Tartelettes à la Marly (Pheasant Tartlets)

Source: Auguste Escoffier, 1907

History

Tartelettes à la Marly is a small hot game entrée attributed to the professional French repertoire of Auguste Escoffier. Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire (first edition 1903) is a French restaurant-cuisine cookbook whose recipes he developed while working at the Savoy, Ritz and Carlton hotels in the decades around 1900 — the elite London and Paris restaurant kitchens he ran in partnership with the hotelier César Ritz, not any royal or court kitchen. "À la Marly" is one of the names Escoffier used for game dishes in this repertoire: the 1903 edition records, for example, "Perdreau à la Marly," a partridge braised in a closed terrine with fresh mousserons. The tartlet that shares the name is built as its printed formula describes — shells lined with fine game forcemeat, filled with thin slices of pheasant breast and truffle, bound with a reduced Salmis de faisan sauce, covered with more forcemeat, poached until set, and dressed on a folded napkin (the recipe as printed in the book is the primary evidence of the dish itself). Beyond this, the historical record I was able to consult does not document who created or ate this particular tartlet, and nothing connects it to Marly-le-Roi, the royal hunting forests, or the court of Versailles. Any claim that game or pheasant here "signalled status" is unsupported by the sources examined and is not part of the documented history.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Line the tartlet shells with fine game farce (farce de gibier), keeping the sides high. Poach the farce gently in the oven to set it.
  2. Garnish each tartlet with thin slices of pheasant breast fillets and thin slices of truffle. Bind the garnish with Salmis de faisan sauce (a rich, concentrated game sauce made from pheasant trimmings).
  3. Cover the garnish with more of the same game farce. Poach gently in the oven until set. Dress on a folded serviette (napkin) and serve.

View on Foodymology