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One Truffle (Gill of Mayonnaise Sauce)
One gill of Mayonnaise Sauce.
Half a gill of Béchamel Sauce.
Half a pint of stiff Aspic Jelly.
A few sprigs of Tarragon and Chervil.
Two sheets of French leaf Gelatine.
Have ready six to eight small flat oval moulds (any pattern). Trim the foie-gras, cut it into slices, and stamp out as many ovals as there are moulds, similar in shape, but somewhat smaller.
Melt the aspic and coat the moulds thinly with it; decorate them with strips of truffle and tarragon and chervil leaves. Stir the mayonnaise sauce to the remainder of aspic while it is still liquid.
Coat the moulds with this, and put the remainder in a mortar with the trimmings of foie-gras and pound till smooth; season to taste, and dissolve the two leaves of gelatine in the Béchamel sauce, and add this to the pounded foie-gras.
Pass it through a fine sieve. Coat each of the oval pieces of foie-gras with this mixture, and set it in the moulds, fill up with the purée, smooth over with a knife, and place the moulds on to the ice to set.
When ready for serving, immerse the moulds in tepid water, wipe with a cloth, turn out and dish up, garnish to taste, and serve.
This is a lined aspic mould in the classic French manner, and the printed ingredient list has been cut off at the top — the foie gras itself and the truffle appear only in the title and the method. Everything is assembled cold from ready-cooked components, so the work is entirely in timing the setting of each layer.
- The hinge: aspic at coating consistencyEach layer must be applied when the aspic is syrupy and just beginning to thicken — cool to the touch, not warm. Too warm and it runs off or melts the layer beneath; too cool and it sets in lumps. Work over a bowl of iced water and stop stirring as soon as it thickens, or it will hold air bubbles.
- Gills and pintsA British gill is 5 fl oz, so one gill of mayonnaise is a scant 2/3 cup and half a gill of béchamel is 2 1/2 fl oz. Half a pint of aspic in imperial measure is 10 fl oz. If you are working from American measures, a gill is 4 fl oz — the proportions still work, but keep to one system throughout.
- How much foie grasNo quantity is given. For six to eight small oval moulds of about 2 fl oz each, allow 10-12 oz of a firm foie gras terrine or bloc — enough to stamp out the ovals with generous trimmings left for the pounded purée, which is where the trimmings are meant to go.
- French leaf gelatineLeaf gelatine varies in strength by grade; two modern platinum or gold leaves weigh roughly 3.5-4 g together, which will set this small quantity of pounded mixture firmly. Soak the leaves in cold water until floppy, squeeze them out, and dissolve them in the bechamel while it is warm but well off the boil he set.
- Mayonnaise colléeMayonnaise stirred into liquid aspic is sauce mayonnaise collée, the pale coating of the chaud-froid repertoire. Add the aspic to the mayonnaise gradually rather than the reverse, and keep both at much the same cool temperature, or the emulsion will break and the coating will look grainy.
- Truffle and herbsThe title implies a single whole truffle, sliced thin and cut into strips. In kitchens of this date that was most often a tinned or bottled truffle, though fresh black truffle would have been used in season. Dip the tarragon and chervil leaves in boiling water for two or three seconds and dry them so that they keep their colour under the jelly instead of browning.
- "On to the ice"An ice box or a bed of crushed ice; the refrigerator does the same job. Set each aspic layer for 10-15 minutes before adding the next, and give the filled moulds at least two hours, or overnight, before turning out.
- UnmouldingTepid water means a few seconds only — a two- or three-second dip, then wipe and invert. Longer and the decorated top layer, which is the whole point of the dish, will slump.
- Yield and serviceSix to eight moulds, one per person, served cold as an hors d'oeuvre or as the savoury before dessert. Garnish with chopped aspic and a little cress or salad heart; they should go to the table straight from the cold.
Moulded foie gras in aspic belongs to the high French service that British professional cooks are generally said to have taken up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — the era of chaud-froid, mayonnaise collé turned out in rows for a cold buffet or a dinner's savoury course. Foie gras itself reached these kitchens as a preserved article, the Strasbourg pâté of the trade lists, which is why the recipe assumes slices firm enough to stamp with a cutter and trimmings solid enough to pound in a mortar. The savoury course, often described as a British institution, gave dishes like this a place at the end of the meal rather than the beginning, and books of this kind assumed a cook with time, ice and a mortar at hand — the ovals here are essentially a miniature of the ornamented cold entrées that Carême's generation built on socles and that Escoffier's simplified into individual portions.