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Chopped Truffles
Cockscombs. Tongues and Mushrooms.
Bone the legs neatly; scrape and pound the veal and bacon, and pass through a sieve; add to this the two tablespoonfuls of chopped tongue, truffles, and mushrooms, the yolks of two eggs, nutmeg, salt and cayenne; mix well together, and stuff the legs of the fowl with this, sewing them up neatly.
Wrap them up in buttered paper, put them in a stewpan with two ounces of butter and some vegetables, cut up; then add three-quarters of a pint of brown stock; put the stewpan in the oven, baste well, and cook gently for one hour.
One gill of Sherry. Lemon-juice. Half a pint of Brown Sauce. When cooked, cut them in slices half an inch thick, and dish up on spinach. For the sauce: make the half pint of brown sauce, sherry, cayenne, and chopped truffles boil up once, and pour round the chicken, putting cockscombs, truffles, pieces of tongue, and mushrooms in the centre.
Filets de Bœuf à la Béarnaise.
Ingredients.
Two pounds of Fillet of Beef, cut up into neat round fillets.
Two ounces of Glaze.
Two ounces of Butter.
One chopped Mushroom.
The page has been printed with its headings and ingredient lists out of joint: the title says "Chopped Truffles", the body is a recipe for boned, stuffed chicken legs garnished with cockscombs, tongue and mushrooms, and the last four lines are the beginning of an entirely different dish, Filets de Bœuf à la Béarnaise. Work only from the stuffed-leg method, and expect to supply your own quantities.
- Missing ingredient listMissing quantities -- The veal, bacon and the fowl itself are called for in the method with no amounts given; the chopped tongue, truffles and mushrooms (two tablespoonfuls) and the two egg yolks are specified in the text, as are the butter and stock. You will have to judge the forcemeat yourself: something in the order of 6 oz veal to 2 oz fat bacon, bound with the two yolks, is a workable proportion.
- The hinge: bone the legs without breaching the skinEverything depends on the leg staying a closed pouch. Work the knife against the bone from the inside, take out thigh and drumstick bones, and sew the opening with a trussing needle and cotton thread. A torn skin lets the forcemeat out into the braise and the slices will not hold together.
- Pounding and sieving"Pound and pass through a sieve" is the mortar-and-tammy method for a smooth farce. A food processor does it in under a minute; keep the meat and bacon very cold so the fat does not smear, and the mixture will slice cleanly.
- Buttered paperButtered paper of this date could be kitchen paper or greaseproof; parchment is the nearest modern equivalent. It keeps the legs moist and stops the skin colouring in the stock; foil over parchment works, though it steams a little more.
- Oven and liquidThree-quarters of a pint is 15 fl oz imperial, a little under two US cups. The book gives no temperature, only "cook gently"; a moderate oven of around 325F suits an hour's gentle braising for stuffed legs, and the forcemeat should reach 165F at the centre.
- Cockscombs and tongueCockscombs were a standard garnish in high-class kitchens and are now effectively unobtainable outside specialist butchers. Omit them, or substitute small poached button mushrooms and dice of cured tongue, which is still sold at good delicatessens.
- TrufflesPreserved (tinned) truffle is the likeliest sort intended, and truffles were less costly then than now, though the page says only "truffles". Fresh black truffle shaved at the last moment, or a small quantity of good truffle in oil stirred into the sauce off the heat, gives more scent for the money; truffle-flavoured oils made with synthetic aroma will taste harsh boiled up in the sauce.
- Brown sauce and glazeThe half pint of brown sauce is in books of this kind usually a version of espagnole; a well-reduced veal stock thickened lightly serves. "Glaze" in the beef fragment is meat glaze, stock reduced to a syrup, brushed on for shine.
- YieldThe recipe gives no number of legs or covers. Sliced half an inch thick over spinach, allow one stuffed leg a head as an entree in the modern sense, or rather less as one course of a longer dinner.
Boning a fowl's legs and refilling them with a fine veal-and-bacon farce is a set piece of the Franco-British professional kitchen of the late nineteenth century, when an entrée meant a made dish served between the fish and the roast rather than a main course. The garnish of cockscombs, tongue, truffle and mushroom is the classic garniture financière, or a close cousin of it: cockscombs and cocks' kidneys were considered luxuries worth their considerable trouble, and their presence on a menu signalled a kitchen with the staff to prepare them. Books of this kind, aimed at cooks in large private households, print such dishes alongside the plainest boiled puddings, because one servant might be asked to produce either. The confusion on this page, with a heading detached from its recipe and a second dish beginning mid-column, is typical of the compressed setting these manuals used to fit several hundred receipts into a small volume.