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Mousse-de-Poulet Salad
Scald one cup of milk, cream or well-reduced chicken stock (the last is preferable); beat the yolks of three eggs slightly, add one-fourth a teaspoonful, each, of common salt and celery salt, and a dash of paprica, and cook as a boiled custard.
Remove from the fire and add one-fourth a package of gelatine (one tablespoonful of granulated gelatine), softened in one-fourth a cup of chicken liquor or water. Strain over half a cup of cooked chicken (white meat), chopped and pounded in a mortar and passed through a sieve. Stir over ice water until the mixture is perfectly smooth and begins to set, then fold into it one cup of whipped cream. Turn into a ring mould, and, when chilled and well set, turn on to a bed of lettuce and fill in the centre with equal parts of celery and English walnuts, blanched, sliced and mixed with a French dressing.
The half-cup of chicken, well pressed down, should weigh four ounces. The chicken broth should be strong and well flavored. Either one cup of whipped cream, or one cup of cream, whipped, may be used. The latter gives a firmer mousse, more pronounced in flavor; the former, a mousse of a lighter and more delicate consistency, and one more delicate in flavor.
A cooked-custard mousse set with gelatine, from the era when the ring mould was the centrepiece of a lunch table. Most of the work is in the chicken; the rest is timing.
- The hinge: catch the setThe custard must be stirred over ice water only until it thickens and just begins to set before the cream goes in. Fold too early and the cream sinks into a layer; too late and the base seizes into lumps that will not smooth out.
- Cook the custard properlyTreat it as a stirred custard over hot water rather than direct heat, until it coats a spoon (roughly 170-175F). Direct heat will scramble the yolks, and straining afterward will not disguise it.
- Gelatine quantitiesThe tablespoon of granulated gelatine given as the equivalent of a quarter package is somewhat more than one modern envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons, 1/4 oz), which sets about two cups of liquid firmly. This mixture runs to roughly three cups, so the set is meant to be soft and sliceable rather than rubbery.
- Pounding the chickenThe mortar-and-sieve step exists because there was nothing else. A food processor with a little of the warm custard added will do it, but the sieve is still worth using afterward for the tendons and stray fibres.
- Two kinds of creamThe note at the end is the important one. "One cup of whipped cream" means a cup measured after whipping, about half a cup of liquid cream; "one cup of cream, whipped" is a full cup of liquid that will roughly double. The second gives twice the fat and a firmer, richer mousse.
- Paprica and celery saltPaprika, spelled as it was then, and meant here as sweet Hungarian rather than smoked. Celery salt was a standard savoury seasoning of the period and is still sold; account for its salt when adjusting.
- English walnuts, blanchedEnglish walnut is simply the common walnut, distinguished from the American black walnut. Blanching here means covering the shelled halves with boiling water briefly and slipping off the bitter skins.
- French dressingAt this date that meant a plain vinaigrette of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, whisked fresh and not emulsified with egg. Dress the celery and walnuts just before serving so they stay crisp.
- Mould and yieldA 4-cup ring mould suits the volume. Chill at least four hours, unmould by dipping the mould a few seconds in warm water, and count on six small salad servings.
Molded savoury mousses belong to the turn-of-the-century American lunch table, when commercially granulated gelatine had made aspics and creams a matter of measuring rather than of boiling calves' feet for a day. Collections of the period sit squarely in that moment: the chafing dish and the ring mould were the two fashionable pieces of equipment for the ladies' luncheon, the card party and the church supper, and a white-meat chicken mousse turned out onto lettuce with a celery-and-walnut centre was very much a dish of that table. The technique itself is straight out of French practice, where a mousse de volaille was built on pounded breast meat forced through a tamis; the fussy pounding and sieving here is a faithful echo of that professional kitchen, transplanted into a household book and made possible for a domestic cook by the packet of gelatine on the shelf.