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Pepper, Salt, and Cayenne (Free the meat from skin)
Free the meat from skin and gristle, and pound in a mortar with one gill of cream and the anchovy till smooth. Rub the whole through a fine sieve.
Put the mixture into a basin; mix in the rest of the whipped cream; season with pepper, salt, and a pinch of cayenne.
Decorate a timbale mould (previously masked with aspic) tastefully with stars of truffle and fancifully cut slices of chilli and gherkin. Coat the inside completely with a layer of aspic cream (using two tablespoonfuls of cream to one of aspic). Whip the aspic jelly to a froth; mix with the chicken purée, adding any trimmings of truffle finely chopped. Finish with a layer of aspic jelly or cream, and put on the ice to set.
Tournedos de Bœuf à la Moscovienne. (Thin Fillets of Beef à la Moscovienne.) Ingredients.
Three pounds of Fillet of Beef.
This is the method half of a cold chicken mousse set in an aspic-lined timbale, printed here without its ingredient list — the closing lines belong to the beef recipe that followed it. Work back from the text: cooked chicken breast, an anchovy or two, whipped cream, and a good savoury aspic, with truffle, chilli and gherkin for the lining.
- The hinge: temperature of the aspicEverything depends on the aspic being liquid but barely cool when it goes into the whipped cream, and cold when it is whipped to a froth. Too warm and it slackens the cream into soup; too cold and it sets in threads that will not blend.
- A gillAbout 5 fl oz, roughly half a cup. The recipe uses one gill for pounding and then "the rest of the whipped cream", but the total is not given, as the ingredient list is missing from this page. Whip to soft peaks only.
- Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding in seconds, but the sieving is not optional if you want the texture the period expected — push the purée through a fine drum sieve or a chinois to catch sinew the blade has only shredded.
- AspicNineteenth-century aspic was clarified veal or chicken stock, set by the gelatine of the bones and feet, though isinglass or sheet gelatine was often added to strengthen it. Reduced strong stock plus powdered gelatine works: aim for a jelly firm enough to unmould but still tender on the tongue, and test a spoonful on a cold plate before committing.
- "Masked" and "coated"Masking means chilling the mould, pouring in a little liquid aspic, and rolling it until a thin film sets on the metal; the decorations are then laid into that film face down and fixed with more aspic. The 2:1 cream-to-aspic "aspic cream" is the opaque white lining coat.
- The anchovyOne anchovy fillet, rinsed and boned if salt-packed; it is there as seasoning rather than a flavour in its own right. Salt content varies a good deal between brands and cures, so taste before adding pepper and salt.
- Chilling and holding"Put on the ice" means several hours in the refrigerator, not the freezer, which would ruin the set. A cream and cooked-poultry mousse should be kept cold and eaten within a day.
- YieldThe quantity of cream is not stated on this page, so yield can only be judged by the mould: a quart timbale will serve eight to ten as a cold first course. Unmould by dipping the base in warm water for a few seconds only.
Cold moulded mousses of this kind were the pride of the garde-manger in the late Victorian and Edwardian kitchen, when dinner was served \the table already composed. The aspic-lined timbale, decorated in reverse with truffle stars and cut gherkin so that the pattern appears on the finished dome, comes out of a long-standing French professional repertoire, and the labour it takes may fairly be read as the point: such a dish suggests a household that kept a trained cook and an ice supply. Names ending "\like like the beef recipe whose heading has strayed onto this page — generally signal Russian dressing of one sort or another, most often caviare, soured cream or horseradish, part of a long French fashion for Russian style rather than any documented Moscow original.