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Chicken Timbales
Put a cupful of uncooked white meat through a meat-grinder, then rub to a paste with a wooden spoon. Put a cupful of milk and 1 of bread crumbs into a saucepan and cut until smooth. Remove from the fire, and when it is cold turn over the chicken, rubbing all the time. Add a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, and 5 tablespoonfuls of cream. Press through a sieve, and add gradually the well-beaten whites of 5 eggs; put the mixture into small greased timbale-moulds; stand the moulds in a pan of hot water, cover with oiled paper, and bake for twenty minutes in a moderate oven. Serve with plain cream sauce and peas.
A classic egg-white forcemeat baked in a bain-marie: light, pale and set like a savoury custard. The whole thing turns on temperature control, since the mixture curdles and weeps if it is baked too hot.
- The panadaThe milk and crumbs are meant to be cooked together over heat until they form a smooth, thick paste that pulls from the sides of the pan, then cooled before meeting the chicken. Combining them cold gives a loose, grainy mixture that will not bind.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually taken as somewhere around 325-350F. With the moulds in a water bath the custard sets gently; baked too hot, the whites tighten and the timbales go spongy and pitted.
- Small measuresA saltspoonful is about 1/4 teaspoon. A cupful of ground raw breast meat is roughly 8 oz, packed lightly.
- MouldsTimbale moulds are small straight-sided metal cups, about 4 oz each; dariole moulds or 4-oz ramekins do the same job. Butter them well and line the bases with rounds of parchment if you intend to turn them out.
- Folding the whitesBeat the whites to soft, not stiff, peaks and fold them in in three additions after sieving. Beaten to dry peaks they break down under the wooden spoon and the timbales rise and collapse.
- The water bathUse water hot from the kettle, coming halfway up the moulds, and keep it below a simmer. Boiling water around the base is the usual cause of a honeycombed texture.
- DonenessTwenty minutes suits small moulds; test with a knife tip near the centre, which should come out clean, and let them stand five minutes before unmoulding so they firm up.
- YieldThe quantities make roughly six to eight small timbales of about 4 oz, enough for six or so as a first course, or fewer as a light main with the peas and cream sauce.