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White Chaud-froid Sauce
(For coating joints of fowl or game, or medallions of fowl, tongue or sweetbreads.) To one pint of white sauce, made of white stock, add three-fourths a cup of aspic jelly and one tablespoonful of lemon juice; let simmer until reduced to the consistency of very thick cream; remove the butter from the top and let cool slightly before using.
IOI
A classic coating sauce rather than a dressing: a velouté stiffened with aspic so it sets to an opaque white glaze over cold poultry, tongue or sweetbreads. Everything depends on the consistency at the moment you pour.
- What "white sauce made of white stock" meansNot milk béchamel but velouté: a pale butter-and-flour roux moistened with unsalted veal or chicken stock, cooked until it loses any floury taste. One pint is 2 cups; the three-fourths cup of aspic brings the total to about 2 3/4 cups before reduction.
- The aspic is the whole pointAspic jelly here is clarified stock set firm with its own gelatin or with added gelatin. It is what makes the sauce cling and hold a smooth skin instead of sliding off. If you are not making aspic from scratch, an equivalent amount of strong stock bloomed with gelatin does the same work, though the flavour is thinner.
- Coating consistency"Very thick cream" means it should coat the back of a spoon heavily and leave a clean line when you draw a finger through it. Test by chilling a spoonful on a saucer for a minute: it should set soft but hold its shape.
- Skim the butterReduction drives fat to the surface, and any butter left in will streak the finished coating and dull the white. Skim thoroughly, then strain through a fine sieve or muslin before using.
- Temperature at the moment of coating"Cool slightly" is the hinge. Too warm and the sauce runs off; too cool and it sets in ropes. Aim for roughly body temperature, stirring over ice until it just begins to thicken, then pour in one sweep over well-chilled, thoroughly dried meat set on a rack. A second coat can go on once the first has set.
- Keep it coldThe coated pieces and the sauce both sit in the danger zone while you work. Chill the meat first, work quickly, refrigerate the finished pieces at once, and serve the same day.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield, and how far you reduce it is left to the cook, so any figure is an estimate: from the 2 3/4 cups you start with you might end with something like 1 1/2 cups, enough for the joints of one chicken or a plate of medallions, with a little over for a second coat.
- The stray "IOI"A page or recipe number carried over from the printed book, not part of the instructions.
Chaud-froid means "hot-cold": a sauce made hot and served cold, the trick being that the gelatin in the stock does the setting. The name is traditionally traced to an eighteenth-century French banquet at which a hot fricassée had to be eaten cold, and the guests found the jellied sauce an improvement — a story repeated in most kitchen histories and documented in none of them. Whatever its origin, the technique was codified in nineteenth-century French professional cookery and reached American tables through the elaborate cold buffet, where masked and glazed poultry, tongue and sweetbreads were arranged on platters and decorated with cut truffle, pimiento or blanched tarragon leaves before a final coat of clear aspic sealed the design.