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Four Eggs (Half pint of double Cream)
Half pint of double Cream.
Pepper and Salt to taste.
Pound the meat in a mortar, then add gradually three ounces of butter, four yolks and two whites of eggs, season to taste, and then pass through a hair-sieve. Whip the remaining two whites of eggs to a stiff froth, half whip the cream, and stir these in very lightly to the chicken mixture. Steam very gently for three-quarters of an hour. Turn out and serve with white sauce made from chickenstock.
This is a chicken mousseline — raw breast pounded with butter, bound with egg and lightened with cream, then steamed in a mould. The heading has lost the meat quantity, which is the first thing to settle.
- The missing quantityThe title and opening line give only the eggs and cream, so the weight of chicken is genuinely absent from the text as printed. A mousseline of this construction is normally built on about 1 lb (450 g) of skinless raw breast to a half pint of cream and four eggs; treat that as a reconstruction, not the author's figure.
- Half pint of double creamAn imperial half pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. Double cream is roughly 48% butterfat; US heavy cream at 36% is the nearest thing, and the finished mousse will be marginally slacker.
- Everything coldThe hinge of the dish. Meat, butter, eggs and cream must all be refrigerator-cold, and the bowl ideally sat over ice. If the mixture warms as the cream goes in, the emulsion can break and the mousse weep fat as it steams.
- Mortar or processorA food processor does the pounding in a minute or two, in short pulses so the friction does not heat the puree. Sieving afterwards is not optional decoration - it removes sinew and is what gives the mixture its fineness.
- The hair-sieveA horsehair drum sieve; a fine nylon or stainless drum sieve, or a medium mesh strainer worked with a plastic scraper, does the same job.
- Folding the whitesWhip the two reserved whites to a soft peak rather than a dry, grainy stiff one, and half-whip the cream only to the point where it holds a ribbon. Both go in at the last moment before moulding, worked in as lightly as the recipe's 'stir these in very lightly' implies.
- Steaming and donenessButter the mould well and cover it with buttered paper or foil so condensation does not sit on the surface. Three-quarters of an hour at a bare simmer suits a mould of moderate size; go by an internal temperature of 165F at the centre, and test smaller moulds from 25 minutes.
- The sauceA velouté: a pale roux slackened with well-reduced chicken stock, finished with a little cream. Since the mousse itself is unseasoned beyond salt and pepper, the sauce is where the dish gets its lift — season it firmly and sharpen with a few drops of lemon.
- YieldEnough for six as an entrée in the period sense — a small plated course between fish and roast — or four as a light main.
The mousseline forcemeat belongs to the classical French repertoire that British "high class" cookery adopted wholesale in the late nineteenth century, when private-house cooks were expected to turn out the same courses as a hotel kitchen. It descends from the quenelle, which was traditionally bound with a panada of bread or flour paste; the lighter version here dispenses with the starch and relies entirely on the emulsion of pounded raw protein, butter, egg and cream, a technique generally credited to the professional kitchens of the Carême-to-Escoffier era. A dish of this kind belonged among the entrées, which then meant not a main course in the American sense but a made dish served between the fish and the roast, judged largely on delicacy. The pounding, sieving and steaming represent hours of labour for a modest quantity of chicken.