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Chicken Timbales II
2 tablespoons butter 1/4 cup stale bread crumbs 1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley 2/3 cup milk 1 cup chopped cooked chicken 2 eggs
The book gives Timbales II as a variation, so the method sits with the first version: soak the crumbs in scalded milk, add the chicken, parsley and beaten eggs, and bake the mixture in buttered moulds set in a pan of hot water. The ingredient list alone leaves several things unsaid.
- The hinge: a water bath, gentlyA timbale is a custard held together by two eggs and nothing else. Bake the moulds standing in a pan of hot water in a moderate oven (the book gives no temperature; about 350F answers); a direct dry oven curdles the egg and the timbales weep when turned out.
- DonenessSmall moulds take roughly 20-30 minutes. They are done when a knife slipped into the centre comes out clean and the mixture no longer trembles as a liquid. Let them stand a few minutes before unmoulding or they collapse.
- Stale bread crumbsThis means soft crumbs from day-old bread, torn or rubbed by hand, not the dry sandy crumbs sold in a canister. Packaged crumbs absorb far more milk and give a pasty timbale.
- Scald the milkThe 2/3 cup of milk should be heated to steaming and poured over the crumbs to soften them into a panada. Cold milk leaves lumps of bread suspended in the custard.
- Chopped cooked chickenChopped here means meat chopped fine with a knife, not shredded and not pureed. A food processor turns it to paste in seconds; pulse sparingly or chop by hand. Poached breast and thigh together give better flavour than breast alone.
- Seasoning is missingThe list as printed gives no salt or pepper. About half a teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper suit this quantity; a scrape of nutmeg is often added to chicken timbales.
- MouldsTimbale moulds were small straight-sided tin cups. Buttered ramekins, dariole moulds or a muffin tin all work. Butter them well and, if you want a clean release, line the bottoms with rounds of parchment.
- Yield and servingProbably enough for six small timbales, or four as a light main course; the recipe itself gives no yield. They were served hot with a white or bechamel sauce, mushroom sauce, or tomato sauce poured around the base.
Timbale comes from the French for a kettledrum, and is generally said to refer to the shape of the little straight-sided mould the mixture is baked in, though that explanation is traditional rather than documented; the word reached French from Spanish atabal, itself from Arabic al-tabl, and it covered both the mould and its contents. Dishes of this kind were a mainstay of the American entree course around 1900: a modest amount of cooked meat, extended with bread and milk, bound with egg and turned out in a neat individual portion that could be sauced at the table. Fannie Farmer's book is full of them, and the appeal was as much economy and presentation as flavour, since a single leftover fowl could be stretched to feed a table and still look like a composed course. The same formula appears throughout the period with fish, sweetbreads, veal or spinach substituted for the chicken.