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Entrées: Robert
Palais de bœuf à la Robert. Ox palates cut in round or oval pieces, and served with Robert This dish may be served with other sauce.
ENTRÉES. sauces instead of Robert, changing the name accordingly.
Palais de bœuf à la Lyonnaise, or à la Marseillaise, are served in soubise sauce. à la Ravigote. Oval pieces, dipped in white sauce with shallot, parsley, etc., breadcrumbed and fried; served with Ravigote sauce. à la Vivandière are dressed in the same way, but served in a highly seasoned brown sauce with port wine. en papillotes. Oval pieces in white sauce with parsley and mushrooms, broiled in papers, and served with Italian sauce.
For Croquettes de palais de bœuf, the palates are cut in pieces and rolled, with forcemeat in the centre of each, dipped in batter, and fried.
They are also dressed in a vol-au-vent, or, if preferred, in several small ones, as Petits vol-auvents de palais de bœuf. Ox-cheek, braised or stewed, and cut in small pieces, is served as- Tête de bœuf à la St. Germain-with green peas; à la Portugaise-with Spanish onions. à la Czarina is served in a sharp brown sauce with currant jelly, sultanas, and gherkins.
This page is about two parts of an ox that have left the butcher’s counter by different routes. Ox palate has gone altogether; ox cheek went away and came back.
- Ox palateThe roof of the mouth, simmered for hours until the tough outer skin peels away, leaving something gelatinous and nearly flavourless. That is why every dish here is really about the sauce. No ordinary butcher sells it now and nothing else behaves the same way.
- Ox cheekThe other half of the page can be cooked tonight. Cheek is sold again, cheaply, as ox cheek or beef cheek, and it wants about three hours at a bare simmer. The page is right to cut it small after the braising rather than before.
- Sauce RobertOf every sauce named here, this is the one still made: onions sweated soft in butter, white wine and vinegar reduced, brown stock, and mustard stirred in at the very end. It must not boil after the mustard goes in, which turns it bitter.
- À la CzarinaCurrant jelly, sultanas and gherkins in a sharp brown sauce. Sweet against sour with beef reads oddly now and is among the oldest instincts in European cookery for a dark meat. This one is worth making as written.
- Vol-au-ventA deep case of puff pastry with the lid cut out and the inside hollowed. Bought puff pastry does it perfectly well; the trick is scoring the inner circle only part way through before baking, so the lid lifts away clean and the walls stay standing.
A household that could put ox palates on a dinner table was buying from a butcher who sold the whole animal, and a kitchen that could make them edible had labour to spare. What is striking is which parts got the grandest names. Palais de bœuf à la Robert, à la Lyonnaise, à la Ravigote, à la Vivandière, en papillotes; tête de bœuf à la St. Germain, à la Portugaise, à la Czarina. The cheapest material in the shop is carrying the most decorated vocabulary in the chapter, because that was the job the French name was hired to do. Ox cheek has since made the return journey and now appears on restaurant menus under its plain English name, which is the opposite trade and tells you the audience changed before the meat did.