À la Maréchale

À la Maréchale("marshal-style" inFrench) is a method of food preparation inhaute cuisine. Dishesà la Maréchaleare made from tender pieces of meat, such ascutlets,escalopes,supremes,sweetbreads, or fish, which are treatedà l'anglaise("English-style"), i.e. coated with eggs andbread crumbs, andsautéed.
The dish is known since the 18th century at least. It is speculated that it could be associated with the Maréchale de Luxembourg (1707-1787), the wife ofCharles-François-Frédéric de Montmorency-Luxembourg(1702–1764) and a major society hostess.According to food historianWilliam Pokhlyobkin, the dish had to be so tender that "even amarshal(a synonym of an elder, satiated and toothless man) could eat it."
Numerous varieties of such dishes are described in 19th-century cookbooks. Various sorts of meat, poultry and fish preparedà la Maréchaleare found e.g. in the works byAndré Viard,Antoine Beauvilliers,Louis Eustache Ude,Marie-Antoine Carême,Jules Gouffé,Alexis Soyer,Charles Elmé Francatelli,Urbain DuboisandCharles Ranhofer.Some books included stuffed versions, such as "rabbità la Maréchale" filled withduxellesand "fowl filletà la Maréchale" stuffed withtrufflesand herbsor with herbs and forcemeat.
After thevictory over Napoleonin 1814, dishesà la Maréchalewere introduced to Russia.Rather elaborate varieties, usually involvinghazel grousefillets, are found in several classical Russian cookbooks. One of the first such books,The Last Workby Gerasim Stepanov, proposes to combine hazel grouse fillets and veal liver.Elena Molokhovets'A Gift to Young Housewives, the most successful Russian cookbook of the 19th century, has included since its first edition in 1861 a recipe for "hazel grouseà la Maréchale" stuffed withMadeira saucewithportobello mushroomsand truffles.A similar variety of "gamecutletsà la maréchale" with aquenelleand truffle stuffing is described in the textbookThe Practical Fundamentals of the Cookery Artby Pelageya Alexandrova-Ignatieva published in the beginning of the 20th century.
In the Soviet times, the bookApportionments for dinners, separate dishes and other products of public catering(1928), which served as a standard reference for Soviet catering establishments, demanded renaming of many traditional restaurant dishes to replace the (mostly French-style) "bourgeoise" names with simple "proletarian" forms.This program was not realised immediately (at least not completely), and its successor,The Directory of Apportionments for Catering(1940), published by the Soviet Ministry of Food Industry, still included chicken and game filletsà la Maréchalestuffed with milk sauce and portobello mushrooms.The major Soviet cookbooks published after WWII, such asCookery(1955) orDirectory of Recipes and Culinary Products for Catering, included the same recipe but named it simply "chicken or game cutlet stuffed with milk sauce" and added a similar "chicken or game cutlet stuffed with liver".As a result, the termà la Maréchaledisappeared from menus of Soviet restaurants.
August Escoffiernotes inLe Guide Culinairethat the commonly used "English-style" coating in these dishes is an economical substitute for the original treatment with chopped truffles.Whilechicken suprêmeandcervelle de veauare prepared this way, other dishesà la Maréchalein his guide, such astournedosandfoie grascollops,include truffles. A garnish of truffles and green asparagus tips is nowadays common for dishesà la Maréchale.
Dishesà la Maréchaleare occasionally mentioned inRussian literatureas a prime example of an "aristocratic" dish of high-level cuisine. InAnton Chekhov's storyPeasants, Nikolay Tchikildyeev, a former hotel waiter, and a cook discussed
In his mémoires, Alexander Martynov, a colonel of the Russian tsarist secret policeOkhranka, recallsanarchistrevolutionaryDmitry Bogrov's assassination of the Russian prime ministerPyotr Stolypinin 1911. A year before, Bogrov wrote a phrase in a letter, which later became frequently cited, that he had "no interest in life. Nothing except an endless row of cutlets to be eaten.""In reality", Martynov commented, "the meaning of life for Bogrov was that these cutlets should beà la Maréchale."
Alexandrova-Ignatieva noted thatcôtelette de volaille(the precursor ofchicken Kiev) is prepared like game cutletsà la Maréchale, with chicken used instead of hazel grouse.The same is stated in another Russian cookbook published at the same time which gives basically the same recipes forcôtelette de volailleandcôtelette à la Maréchaleand notes that the only difference between them is that the former are made of chicken while the latter are made of game, such as grouse,blackcock, etc.