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Mousses de Foie-gras à la
Reine. (Creams of Foie-gras.) Ingredients.
A terrine of Foie-gras.
One ounce of Butter.
Carrot. Onion. Thyme. Bacon. A glass of Sherry.
One pint of Aspic Jelly.
Truffles. Four tablespoonfuls of Glaze.
Half a gill of Cream.
Cooked Asparagus points.
One gill of Mayonnaise Sauce.
Procure a terrine of foie-gras, size No. 9 or No. 10. Take out the liver and farce, cut it into slices, place in a buttered sauté-pan with small slices of carrot, onion, a sprig of thyme, and bacon. Cook over a brisk fire for a few minutes, season with spice, moisten with a glass of sherry, and allow to get cold. Mask eight to ten small dariole moulds with aspic jelly, ornament each with fancifully cut slices of truffles. (You can take this out of the foie-gras.) Put the foie-gras and liquor into a mortar, pound well, and pass through a sieve. Put this in a basin, stir in four tablespoonfuls of dissolved meat glaze and two tablespoonfuls of aspic jelly, stand the basin on some crushed ice, and work the mixture with a whisk until it commences to thicken; add by degrees a little more aspic jelly or very strong veal stock; last of all work in about half a gill of whipped cream. Fill up the moulds and stand them on the ice. Dress the mousses in a circle, placing each on a round of aspic jelly. Fill the centre with cooked asparagus points well seasoned with mayonnaise and aspic jelly. Garnish with triangular shapes of aspic jelly and parsley, and serve.
A cold moulded first course from the classical repertoire: cooked foie gras, sieved, lightened with glaze, aspic and whipped cream, set in aspic-lined dariole moulds. Most of the work is in the setting, not the cooking.
- The hinge: whisk the base to the right pointStand the basin on ice and whisk only until the mixture begins to thicken to the consistency of lightly whipped cream before folding in the cream. Fold too early and the cream sinks and weeps; leave it until it has actually set and the mousse turns grainy and will not fill the moulds cleanly.
- A terrine "size No. 9 or No. 10"Commercial terrines of foie gras were sold in numbered sizes, a trade convention rather than any measure a modern shop uses; what the numbers corresponded to is not stated here. Something in the region of a pound of prepared foie gras with its fat is a workable quantity against the amounts of glaze, aspic and cream given.
- Gills and glassesA British gill is 5 fl oz, so half a gill of cream is 2.5 fl oz (about 1/3 cup) and a gill of mayonnaise is 5 fl oz. A "glass of sherry" in this period means a wine glass, 2 to 3 fl oz.
- GlazeFour tablespoonfuls of glaze means glace de viande, veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets rubbery when cold. Melt it gently before stirring it in. A commercial reduced veal stock concentrate is the nearest equivalent; stock cubes are not, and will make the mousse salty.
- Aspic jellyThe original assumes a house aspic made from a gelatinous veal and knuckle stock, clarified with egg white. If you build one from clarified stock plus leaf gelatine, aim for a jelly firm enough to slice cleanly for the rounds and triangles, which is stiffer than the set inside the mousse itself.
- Season with spiceThe recipe does not say which spice; a mixed spice of the quatre épices type (pepper, nutmeg, clove and ginger or cinnamon) is a likely reading. Use it lightly; the terrine is already seasoned.
- The vegetables and bacon are flavouring onlyCarrot, onion, thyme and bacon go into the pan to perfume the liver and the sherry. They are not sieved into the mousse; pass everything through the sieve and discard what stays behind.
- Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding, but still push the purée through a drum sieve or fine tamis afterwards. Foie gras carries fine veins and connective tissue that a blade will not break down and that will show as threads in a set mousse.
- Lining and turning outMask the chilled darioles with a thin film of aspic set in stages, laying the truffle slices into the tacky layer so they hold their pattern. To unmould, dip each mould in warm water for two or three seconds only, then invert; the mousse is soft and will slump if it warms through.
- YieldEight to ten darioles of about 2 to 3 fl oz each, served as a cold first course or buffet dish for the same number.
"À la reine" in nineteenth-century kitchen French signals a white, rich, creamed preparation; the traditional attributions to particular queens are folk tradition, and the phrase attached itself readily to anything sieved smooth and lightened with cream. This dish sits at the junction of two Victorian luxuries: imported terrines of Strasbourg foie gras, sold in numbered glazed pots and treated as a stock item to be bought rather than made, and aspic work, which the professional cold larder had turned into an entire discipline of lined moulds, cut truffle patterns and geometric jelly garnish. A recipe like this presumes a cook with ice, a mortar, a drum sieve and a supply of clarified veal jelly on hand — the equipment of a large staffed household or a hotel. The truffle detail is telling: rather than buying truffles, the cook is told to pick them out of the terrine, since a good foie gras of the period came studded with them.