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Olives, with Foie Gras
Take some croutons and spread them over with pate de foie gras; put on each a blanched olive, from which the stone has been removed and the cavity filled with pate de foie gras. Decorate the edges of the croutons and top of the olives with maitre d'hotel butter, made by beating together an ounce of butter, two tea-spoonfuls of parsley, and four drops of lemon-juice.
A savoury canapé from the era when a small hot or cold savoury closed a formal dinner. Nothing here is cooked, so the whole thing stands or falls on the quality of the three components and on keeping the butter cold enough to hold a piped line.
- "Croutons" means fried bread basesA crouton here is a shaped piece of bread fried and drained, not a soup cube. The recipe specifies neither size nor frying fat. Toasted bread cut with a small cutter works, but fried holds up better under moist pâté.
- Blanched olivesLarge green olives in brine, dropped into boiling water briefly and cooled, to take the harsh salt edge off. Modern brined olives are often milder than period stock, so taste first; a rinse may be enough.
- Stoning and fillingUse a cherry stoner or the point of a small knife to spiral the flesh off the stone. Fill the cavity with a piping bag and a plain 3–4 mm nozzle; spooning it in tears the olive.
- Pâté de foie gras todayPeriod "pâté de foie gras" was a firm potted goose-liver preparation. A bloc or parfait is closest; a mousse is too loose to sit on the bread. Production and sale are restricted in some jurisdictions — a good chicken-liver parfait behaves identically here.
- Maître d'hôtel butterOne ounce of butter is two tablespoons, and four drops of lemon juice is deliberately minimal — this is a decorating butter, not a sauce. Beat it soft, fold in the very finely chopped parsley, then chill until firm enough to pipe through a small star tube without slumping.
- Order of workSpread and assemble first, then pipe the butter last and refrigerate the finished croutons for fifteen minutes. Piped butter on a room-temperature crouton loses its edges within minutes.
- Yield and servingAn ounce of butter and a small jar of olives will dress roughly a dozen croutons, depending on their size; the recipe gives no yield. Serve cold, one or two per person, as a savoury or with drinks; assemble no more than an hour ahead or the bread softens.
Cassell's belongs to the period when an English dinner ended not with sweets but with a savoury — an anchovy toast, a devilled biscuit, a mushroom on croute — a small salty mouthful served after the ice and before the dessert fruit. Foie gras reached British tables chiefly as imported potted goose liver from Strasbourg and the south-west of France, sold in stoneware or tin and treated as a luxury store-cupboard item rather than something a household would make; a spoonful stretched over a dozen croutons was exactly the kind of economy the dictionary favoured. Maître d'hôtel butter, butter worked with parsley and lemon, is one of the standard compound butters codified in nineteenth-century French professional practice and appears throughout books of this type, usually melting over a grilled chop; using it piped and cold as decoration shows how far the garnishing habits of the restaurant kitchen had travelled into the domestic manual by the turn of the century.