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Capers, Parsley, and Gherkins
A teaspoonful of Chopped Tarragon and Chervil.
Cut some young carrots and turnips with a small round or oval vegetable scoop, blanch and cook them separately in salted water; cut some French beans into diamond shapes, blanch and cook; boil some asparagus tips and peas. When all are well drained and cold, mix with a little oil, vinegar, and mayonnaise sauce; season with cayenne pepper and salt. Cut the anchovies, some of the salmon and the cooked meat into small dice, with a few capers, a dessertspoonful of chopped gherkins, and a tablespoonful of caviare; add this to the mixture; sprinkle with a little chopped parsley and the chopped savoury herbs; stir in a little aspic jelly to bind them. Prepare a border of aspic, garnished with olives, capers, prawns, pickles, etc.; put a little of the above mixture in the centre of this, fill up with aspic, and put to cool. Mask a medium-sized bomb mould with aspic, garnish with fancifully-cut slices of smoked salmon, gherkins, olives, caviare, pickles, prawns, etc.; fill up the centre of same with the mixture, previously mixed with a little more aspic, so as to make it set well. Put it on the ice, and, when wanted, turn out the border first, place the bomb shape in the centre, garnish to taste, and serve very cold. When filling the bomb mould it should be fixed in some broken ice, to make it stand well. The mixture should be put in in layers, with aspic between each one until the salad comes to a point when turned out.
N
This is a moulded salade Russe in aspic, printed here with its ingredient list truncated — the title and opening line are the tail of a list that began on the previous page, which is why anchovies, salmon, cooked meat and caviare appear in the method with no quantities attached. Treat the proportions as yours to set.
- The missing quantitiesAnchovies, salmon and "the cooked meat" are referred to as if already specified, and the original amounts are not on this page. The proportions are yours to set: something like 1 lb of diced vegetables to 8-10 oz of fish and meat, bound with just enough aspic to hold them together, gives a mixture that slices cleanly.
- Aspic is the whole recipeEverything depends on the jelly setting firm enough to hold a point when unmoulded but not rubbery. A strong clarified stock set with gelatine to a firm-but-quivering consistency is what is wanted; a packet of powdered aspic or a well-reduced homemade stock with about 1 tablespoon of gelatine per pint both work. Test a spoonful on a cold plate before committing the mould.
- Layer, do not dumpThe instruction to build the mixture in layers with aspic between each is the hinge. Poured in as one mass, the salad slumps and the turned-out shape collapses; each layer must be nearly set before the next goes on, which means an hour or more of patient work in the refrigerator.
- Bomb mouldA "bomb" (bombe) mould is the conical or dome-shaped ice-cream mould, which is why the salad "comes to a point when turned out." A metal pudding basin or brioche mould is the nearest common substitute. The instruction to fix it in broken ice is about keeping it upright and cold at once; a bowl of ice water in the refrigerator does the same, or simply chill on a level shelf.
- Vegetable scoopThe small round or oval scoop is a Parisienne cutter or melon baller, in one of the smaller sizes. Cutting French beans "into diamond shapes" means slicing them on a sharp bias — the point is uniform decorative shapes, not flavour.
- Blanch and cook separatelyCarrots, turnips, beans, asparagus and peas all go in salted water in separate batches so nothing bleeds colour or overcooks. Modern practice is a quick boil then straight into ice water: 3-4 minutes for the carrot and turnip balls, 2-3 for beans and asparagus tips, 1-2 for peas. Drain very dry or the aspic will not set around them.
- A dessertspoonfulTwo teaspoons. A tablespoonful in a British book of this date is close to the modern 15 ml measure.
- Turning outDip the mould in warm water for a few seconds only, then invert onto a chilled dish. Any longer and the garnish set into the lining jelly begins to melt and slide.
- Yield and serviceA bombe of this sort with its aspic border will serve something in the region of 8-10 as a cold first course or buffet centrepiece. It must go to the table very cold and be eaten the day it is made; the mayonnaise and cut fish will not keep past that.
- The stray letterThe lone "N" at the end is almost certainly an artefact of the original printing rather than part of the recipe.
This is salade Russe dressed up for the sideboard — the diced vegetable salad bound with mayonnaise that French kitchens are generally said to have adopted by around the mid-nineteenth century, though its origins are contested, and that British caterers then encased in aspic and unmoulded as a showpiece. The addition of caviare, smoked salmon, anchovy and prawn is the mark of the late-Victorian and Edwardian grande cuisine that this sort of book was written for: cold work, prepared hours ahead, judged almost entirely on how it looked when it came to the table. Aspic was the medium of that judgement, and a kitchen that could produce a clear, firm, well-flavoured jelly could line a mould with cut olives and gherkins and turn out something architectural. The style faded with the domestic staff needed to execute it, though the technique survives in professional charcuterie and in the moulded "Russian salad" still sold across Europe and Latin America in a far plainer form.