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Quails, in Aspic
Bone the quails, halve them, and cover them with brown chaudfroid sauce. Leave them to set. Line thinly some dariole moulds with aspic jelly, and ornament with cut truffles, white of hard-boiled egg, ham, or tongue. Put half a quail in each mould, and fill up with more chaudfroid sauce. Leave till set. Turn out, and serve on a border of aspic jelly. To make brown chaudfroid sauce:--Take half a pint of aspic jelly, two table-spoonfuls of brown sauce, half an ounce of glaze, half a wine-glassful of sherry, a pinch of sugar, and pepper and salt. Put into a saucepan, and reduce to one-fourth by boiling, keeping it well skimmed. Then pass through a tamis.
This is cold larder work of the Escoffier era, written for a kitchen that already had stock, aspic and brown sauce standing by. Nothing here is difficult, but every stage depends on temperature control, and the book assumes several things it never says.
- The quails must already be cookedCassell's takes it for granted that the birds have been roasted or braised and gone cold before boning — chaudfroid is by definition a dish of cooked meat masked in sauce. Cook them through to 165F and chill thoroughly; nothing in the moulding process applies any heat.
- Aspic jellyA clarified, well-gelatined savoury stock jelly, not a savoury gelatin dessert; the brown chaudfroid sauce would be built on a brown stock, though the jelly for lining the moulds is a clear one. If you are not making it from veal or poultry feet, use a strong stock set with about 1 oz (four sachets) of powdered gelatin per quart for a jelly firm enough to unmould.
- GlazeGlace de viande: stock reduced to a syrup that sets rubbery when cold. Half an ounce is roughly a scant tablespoon. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a reduced-stock paste stands in.
- MeasuresHalf a pint is 10 fl oz imperial, so a scant 1 1/4 US cups; a wine-glassful in this period is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half of one is about 1 fl oz, or two tablespoons.
- Reducing the sauceBoiling half a pint down to a quarter of its volume leaves only 2 to 3 fl oz of very concentrated, heavily gelatined sauce — enough to mask a few small pieces, no more. Skim constantly; the scum is what makes the finished coating cloudy.
- TamisA drum sieve; in period sauce work the word often refers to the tammy cloth itself. A fine chinois or a conical strainer lined with damp muslin does the same job, and the sauce should go through it hot or it will seize in the cloth.
- Working temperatureThe hinge of the dish. Chaudfroid sauce is applied when it coats the back of a spoon but is cool and just on the point of setting. Too hot and it runs off; too cool and it sets in lumps. Stand the bowl over iced water and stir as it comes down.
- Dariole mouldsSmall deep tin moulds, slightly tapered, of about 3 to 4 fl oz. Ramekins, timbale moulds or squat teacups work. Line them by pouring in liquid aspic, rolling it up the sides over ice, and pouring the excess back.
- Turning out and yieldDip each mould in hot water for two or three seconds only, then invert. Four quails give eight halves, so eight moulds — a first course for four, or a cold buffet dish. Keep refrigerated and serve within a day; the decorated aspic weeps once it has been out an hour or two.
Chaudfroid — literally "hot-cold", a dish cooked hot and eaten cold under its own jellied sauce — is generally traced to late eighteenth-century France, and a much-repeated story credits its invention to a cook of the Maréchal de Luxembourg who was called away from a dinner and served the sauced fricassee cold the next day; the tale is traditional rather than documented. By the time Cassell's was compiled the technique had become one of the fixed showpieces of the English professional kitchen, the standard treatment for cold birds at a ball supper or a summer buffet, and it was applied to chicken, pheasant and other birds as well as to quail — small, whole, and easily boned into two neat halves that fit a dariole mould. The truffle, egg white, ham and tongue cut into shapes and set into the clear jelly belong to the same decorative grammar, worked out for tables where the cold sideboard was meant to be looked at as much as eaten. The dish is really an exercise in three preparations — stock, sauce and jelly — that a Victorian kitchen made continuously and a modern one makes only on purpose.