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Timbale of Chicken Mayonnaise
Braise a pair of young fowl with plenty of vegetables and some good white stock, and set aside to cool. Line a timbale or tube mould with golden aspic jelly, and ornament or dot it with cooked tongue, hard-boiled white of egg and cooked cucumber, cut into fancy shapes with the tiny cutters which can be bought at any first-class housefurnishing store. Set this aside to chill. Take the skin from the braised birds and remove the white meat, cutting it into square pieces. Have ready 1/2 pint of thick mayonnaise dressing, add 1 tablespoonful or 2 of whipped cream, and 2 tablespoonfuls of liquid aspic jelly, which should be cool, not warm. Dress the white meat of the fowl with this sauce and fill the lined mould with the mixture. Pour a layer of cool jelly over the top and set on ice to chill for at least an hour. Turn out the timbale and fill the hollow centre with young peas (French canned peas in winter) which have been boiled tender, and then carefully drained, and finally dressed lightly with French dressing. Surround the whole with a circle of small, fine cress. Serve as a salad course.
A cold moulded chicken salad from the era when a dinner party salad course was expected to be architecture. Nothing here is difficult, but the aspic dictates the order of work: every layer must be cool and set before the next goes in, or the whole thing slumps when you unmould it.
- The hinge: temperature of the jellyThe aspic added to the mayonnaise must be liquid but cool, barely above room temperature. Warm jelly will thin the mayonnaise and can break it; jelly that has begun to set will seize into lumps you cannot smooth out.
- A pair of young fowl'Young fowl' means small, tender birds; two chickens of roughly 3 lb would be a fair modern stand-in, though the recipe gives no weight. You need only the breast meat, so a modern cook can braise two whole chickens and use the legs elsewhere, or braise four bone-in breasts in stock with carrot, onion, celery and leek for 30-35 minutes at a bare simmer.
- Aspic jellyPeriod aspic was clarified, well-gelled stock, often golden in colour. Reduce strong chicken stock, season it assertively (cold food tastes flat), and set it with at least 1 tablespoon of powdered gelatin per 2 cups of liquid, using more if the stock has little natural body, since the jelly must be firm enough to unmould. Clarify with egg white if you want it clear enough to show the garnish.
- Measures1/2 pint of mayonnaise is 1 cup. If you make it yourself it will contain raw yolk; keep the finished timbale refrigerated throughout and use pasteurized eggs if serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised.
- Lining the mouldChill the tube mould, pour in a thin layer of jelly, let it set, arrange the cut tongue, egg white and cucumber face-down on it, then fix them with another thin layer before filling. Cutting the shapes and laying them in one go into liquid jelly will make them float and drift.
- "Set on ice"The refrigerator. An hour is the minimum for a small mould; a full tube mould of this size wants 4 hours or overnight to unmould cleanly.
- UnmouldingDip the mould in warm water for 5-10 seconds, wipe it dry, and invert onto a chilled platter. Longer than that and the ornamented outer layer melts into a smear.
- Peas and cressFrozen peas replace both the fresh and the "French canned" of the original: boil 2-3 minutes, drain thoroughly, cool, and dress at the last moment so the vinaigrette does not bleed into the aspic. Fine cress means garden cress or watercress sprigs, not the coarse leaves.
- YieldA quart mould serves 8 as a salad course, 5 or 6 as a light lunch.