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Pyramid of Boned Fowls, Decorated
Get the tinner to make three galantine moulds of different sizes flaring or tapering so that piled on each other upside down they will form a pyramid. The largest may hold six quarts, the next four, the smallest two quarts. The long and narrow shape almost like a brick, with the edges sharp looks as well as any, though they may be six or eight-sided if preferred. Prepare three boned and pressed fowls to correspond with the moulds, leaving plenty of room for the jelly.
Prepare six quarts of aspic jelly clarified a second time and very firm. Prepare a large sheet of yellow custard made of sixteen yolks of eggs mixed with over half a cupful of clear broth and steamed in a six--quart milk pan set over a boiler--the pan to be buttered before the custard is poured in, but very slightly.
Also prepare a similar sheet of white custard made of the whites of the eggs in the same way.
These custard when cold are to be loosened round the edges and shaken out onto a slab, to be stamped out in fancy shapes, spear heads, leaves, stars, crescents, etc.
To mix with these there may be also fancy shapes cut from slices of raw beets, carrots and turnips, or some kinds of pickles, such as mangoes and large peppers, all well freed from moisture. The patterns have to be graded in size to correspond with the different sized moulds.
Set each mould in a pan of broken ice, water and salt. Pour in some melted jelly and on the jelly as it coats the sides construct the pattern desired, and when well set pour over another coat of jelly to secure it in its place. Finish perfectly even with the tops of the moulds with a bold pattern of spades or spear heads in close order, cut from some firm material, to add strength to the foundation edge.
When the decoration is completed and well set place the boned fowls inside and fill the moulds around them with clear jelly so nearly cold as not to endanger melting the patterns from the sides.
Observe that the boned fowls must be cut deep enough to rest on the bottom of the mould and reach quite even with the top, as the jelly will not bear any pressure and the blocks of meat must rest upon each other when built up. After building up these decorated galantines on a dish on a raised stand (sur socle) ornament with blocks and mouldings of aspic jelly, and, perhaps, if they be not regarded out of fashion, with ornamental silver skewers passed through wreaths of wax flowers. "It is osmazome which constitutes the real merit of good soups, gives meat its reddish tinge, forms the crisp brown on roasts, and which yields a flavor to venison and game. This explains, by the way, why your real connoisseur has always, in poultry, preferred the inner thigh; his taste had instinctively anticipated science." --Gastronomee "`Our Prior loves exceedingly the white of a capon.' `In that,' said Gymnast, `he doth not resemble the foxes; for of the capons, hens, and pullets which they carry away they never eat the white. The leg of the leveret is good for those that have the gout.'" --French Classic
This is a hotel showpiece rather than a dinner dish: three decorated aspic-lined moulds stacked into a pyramid. Everything hinges on temperature control, and the work is done in stages over two days.
- The hinge: pour cool, not warmJelly poured over set decoration must be barely fluid, thick and syrupy, or it will wash the custard cutouts off the walls. The recipe's own instruction is to have the jelly "so nearly cold as not to endanger melting the patterns from the sides"; melt aspic gently and let it stand until it just coats a spoon before each successive coat.
- The moulds"Get the tinner" means commission tinsmiths; nobody does this now. Loaf pans of 6, 4 and 2 quarts (roughly 1.5, 1 and 0.5 gallon) stacked inverted approximate the effect, though the recipe specifically wants sides that flare or taper so the stack reads as a pyramid. Sharp edges matter more than the number of facets.
- Aspic strength"Very firm" here means a jelly stiff enough to be cut into blocks and to carry weight, far firmer than a modern table jelly. The recipe asks only that it be "clarified a second time"; period clarification used egg white with lean beef, and it is that second pass that makes the jelly clear enough for the pattern to read through the walls.
- The custard sheetsThis is royale — sixteen yolks with a half cup of broth, and the matching whites, steamed in a buttered pan set over a boiler. A 6-quart pan gives a sheet about a quarter-inch thick. Steam gently until just set; any boil makes it porous and it will not stamp cleanly.
- ChillingThe pan of broken ice, water and salt is the period's chilling bath; salted ice slush sits well below freezing and sets each coat of jelly fast. A refrigerator works but the coats take much longer, and the recipe's rhythm depends on fast setting.
- Fitting the meatThe pressed boned fowl must be trimmed to stand on the bottom of the mould and sit flush with the rim, because the stacked weight rides on the meat, not the jelly. Aspic will not bear load and will crush.
- Decorations that are not foodWax flowers and silver skewers were table furniture, meant to be removed before serving. Raw beet, carrot and turnip cutouts and the pickled mangoes (stuffed pickled melons, not the tropical fruit) must be blotted bone dry or they will bleed into the jelly.
- Holding and servingThe fowls are already cooked; nothing here reheats them. A stacked aspic of this size warms slowly but steadily on a buffet, so keep it refrigerated until the last moment and do not let it stand out for hours. Three fowls with twelve quarts of mould between them make a cold course for a large table.
Jessup Whitehead wrote for professional hotel and restaurant cooks in the 1880s and 90s, and this entry belongs to the tradition of the pièce montée — the architectural centrepiece generally traced to Antonin Carême, whose cold-larder work set the pattern for decorated galantines set in aspic and displayed sur socle, on a raised base. By Whitehead's day American hotels were competing on visible display at banquets and buffets, and a chef who could line a mould with clear jelly and stamped royale had a marketable skill; the aside that silver skewers and wax flowers may already "be regarded out of fashion" shows the style beginning to date even as he wrote. The two quotations tacked on at the end are borrowed decoration of another kind: the first is Brillat-Savarin on osmazome, the supposed savoury essence of meat that nineteenth-century cooks invoked to explain browning and depth of flavour, and the second is Rabelais by way of a translation, both there to lend the page a literary polish to match the pyramid.