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Chartreuse de Faisan à la
Balmoral. (Chartreuse of Pheasant, Cold.) Ingredients.
Half a pound of cold Pheasant (freed from skin and bone). Six to eight small Chicken Quenelles.
Three large Truffles.
Six preserved Mushrooms.
Three to four cooked Cocks' Combs.
One and a quarter pints of Aspic Jelly.
Seasoning. Half a pint of Espagnole Sauce.
One glass of Sherry.
Half an ounce of Meat Glaze.
One hard-boiled Egg.
Line a charlotte or large timbale mould with aspic. Ornament the bottom and side with fancifully cut slices of truffles and white of egg; fix the garnish with liquid aspic. Put one gill of Espagnole sauce and one gill of aspic in a stewpan, and reduce it to one-third, pass it through a tammy. Allow this to cool a little, then mask the inside of the mould.
Cut the pheasant meat, mushrooms, and remainder of truffles into convenient slices or fillets; mix them with a sauce composed of Espagnole sauce, sherry, a quarter of a pint of aspic, and half an ounce of meat glaze. Reduce this well, and when cooling, mix it with the meat, etc.
Season the whole to taste, and fill up the mould.
Stand on the ice until perfectly firm, immerse in tepid water, and turn out on a dish with folded napkin or dish paper. Garnish with chopped aspic round the base of the dish, and serve.
A cold moulded entrée built entirely from leftovers of a roast game bird and a well-stocked larder of made sauces. Nothing here is cooked; the whole thing succeeds or fails on the setting strength of the aspic and on patient chilling.
- The hinge: aspic strengthThe lining jelly must be firm enough to hold a turned-out shape at room temperature but not rubbery — a commercial aspic or a strong, well-clarified stock set with gelatine at roughly 1 oz per quart. Test a teaspoonful on a cold saucer before you line anything; if it does not set within a couple of minutes on ice it will collapse when unmoulded.
- Gills and pintsThis is an imperial book: a gill is 5 fl oz, a pint 20 fl oz. So one and a quarter pints of aspic is about 3 cups, and the half pint of espagnole about 1 1/4 cups.
- Lining the mouldChill the mould thoroughly, pour in a little aspic, and roll it over ice until a thin coat clings; repeat rather than trying to set a thick layer at once. Truffle and egg-white cut-outs are laid into that first set coat and fixed with a brushed drop of liquid aspic, then covered by the next.
- Cocks' combsA standard nineteenth-century garnish, blanched and simmered until gelatinous. They are not obtainable from an ordinary butcher now; omit them, or use a few more quenelles or button mushrooms. The dish loses nothing edible.
- Preserved mushroomsBottled or tinned button mushrooms in brine, not dried. Drain and pat dry, or the liquid will thin the setting sauce.
- Espagnole and meat glazeEspagnole is the brown mother sauce — a rich brown roux-based stock sauce; a good reduced demi-glace stands in. Half an ounce of meat glaze is about a tablespoon of very stiff reduced stock; a spoonful of concentrated veal or beef glace works.
- Pass it through a tammyA tammy is a fine woollen straining cloth. A fine sieve or double muslin gives the same result.
- Chilling and turning outAllow at least four hours in the refrigerator, and overnight is better. "Immerse in tepid water" means a two- or three-second dip only — long enough to melt the film against the metal, no longer, or the ornament runs.
- Yield and serviceHalf a pound of meat in a charlotte mould serves four to six as a cold entrée. It is cut in wedges at the table, so keep it refrigerated until the moment it goes out and return leftovers to the cold promptly.
A chartreuse was originally a moulded dish lined with vegetables cut into neat patterns, the name generally traced to the Carthusian monks and their meatless table — the vegetable casing being what made the concealed contents permissible, or at least invisible. By the later nineteenth century the word had drifted to mean almost any composed moulded entrée, hot or cold, and the vegetable lining had given way to aspic jelly studded with truffle and egg white. The Balmoral tag is probably the usual Victorian flattery of the royal Scottish estate, and may well have been attached freely to game dishes, Balmoral suggesting grouse and pheasant to anyone reading a cookery book in Britain then. Note too that the recipe is a thrift dish dressed as luxury: half a pound of cold roast pheasant, the trimmings of yesterday's dinner, rebuilt into something a butler could carry in.