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Entrées: Croquettes
Croquettes de volaille aux truffes are made with chopped truffles instead of ham or tongue, and are served with truffle sauce. Dressed with tongue and served in a white sauce with chopped tongue, they are called Croquettes de volaille à l'écarlate.
Petites bombes à la Reine are little moulds of chicken forcemeat. They may be served cold, set in aspic, as Chaudfroid en aspic à la Reine.
Petites bombes à la Princesse are moulds made of chicken forcemeat with croquette preparation in the centre, and are served with white sauce and a vegetable garnish.
Crêpes à la Reine are small pancakes folded over chicken croquette preparation, cut in halves and served in a crown.
Dormers de volaille are chicken dormers-the whites of hard-boiled eggs filled with chicken forcemeat; served with spinach or any vegetable garnish, and a white sauce with chopped ham.
Quenelles de volaille are quenelles of chicken forcemeat. They are poached and served with a dressed vegetable, or dipped in white sauce, breadcrumbed and fried. Au Suprême, they are served with Suprême sauce.
En demi deuil, half of them are rolled in chopped truffles; dressed in a crown, with white sauce and chopped truffles.
À l'écarlate, they are dressed alternately with glazed slices of tongue of the same size, and served with Suprême sauce. If a Russian tongue is used, they are called à la Russe instead of à l'écarlate.
An entrée in this book is not the main course. It is a made dish, something shaped or moulded or rolled, served in the run of courses before the roast, and this page lists what can be done with chicken once it has been reduced to forcemeat.
- EntréeThe American use of the word for the principal plate is a later turn. Here the entrées are small, several of them appear at one dinner, and the point of them is to show skill rather than to fill anybody up.
- ForcemeatRaw meat pounded with a panada of bread or flour, bound with egg and cream, then poached. This was an hour at a mortar and is now half a minute in a food processor, which is the single reason a page like this is cookable again.
- QuenelleA poached dumpling of that forcemeat, shaped between two wet spoons. The water must be barely moving; a true simmer breaks them open.
- À l’écarlate means tongueScarlet, for the colour of cured ox tongue. Wherever the word appears in this book, cooked tongue is the red element in a pattern — and en demi deuil, half-mourning, means the black one is truffle.
- ChaudfroidA cold dish coated in sauce stiffened with aspic so that it sets to a smooth skin. The sauce has to be at the point of setting when it is poured, which is a window of a minute or two either side.
- DormersThe page describes halved hard-boiled whites filled with chicken forcemeat. That leaves the yolks, which the book never mentions and a modern cook has to plan a use for before starting.
The entrée course is where a large kitchen recovered its costs. Almost everything here begins with chicken that has already been cooked or with trimmings pounded into forcemeat, and the elaboration — the crowns, the moulds, the aspic, the chopped truffle — is what converted yesterday’s fowl into something that could be carried in under a French name. One line records the trade behind it: quenelles dressed with tongue are called à l’écarlate, but if the tongue is a Russian one they are called à la Russe instead. The garnish was named for where the cured tongue was imported from, which tells you both that imported tongue was ordinary in this kitchen and that a guest was expected to know the difference from the menu card alone.