Ham Mousse
Follow the above directions substituting cooked ham in every instance where previous recipe calls for chicken. Chopped mushrooms are a delicious addition to this dish and mushrooms may be mixed with the sauce when served and also used as decorations.
This is a variation note rather than a standalone recipe: it sends you back to the chicken mousse a few lines above, which in this book means cooked meat pounded to a paste, bound with a thick white sauce and gelatin, lightened with whipped cream and set in a mould. A few things about that method need translating.
- Read the parent recipe firstNothing here works without the chicken mousse directions immediately preceding it. Quantities, gelatin and moulding time all come from there; this page only tells you to swap the meat.
- SaltHam is far saltier than boiled chicken. Season the sauce and the meat paste lightly and taste before the cream goes in, since you cannot correct it once the mixture is set.
- Gelatin measuresPeriod recipes call for granulated gelatin by the tablespoon or by the packaged envelope. One modern envelope is about 1 tablespoon, or 1/4 ounce, and will set roughly 2 cups of liquid to a sliceable firmness. Soften it in cold water, then dissolve it in the hot sauce, never in the whipped cream.
- Pounding the meatA recipe of this date would most likely have used a mortar and a sieve. A food processor does the work in under a minute, but stop while the paste is still slightly coarse; taken too far, ham turns gluey and the mousse loses its lightness.
- Folding orderThe hinge of the dish. The gelatin-and-sauce base must be cool and just beginning to thicken before the whipped cream is folded in. Fold into a warm base and the cream deflates; fold into a set base and you get lumps of jelly through the mousse.
- The mushroomsCook them before they go anywhere near the mixture. Sauté chopped mushrooms in butter until they have given up their water and it has evaporated, or the liquid they release will weep into the set mousse. For decoration, whole or sliced caps arranged on the unmoulded surface hold their shape better than chopped.
- Moulding and unmouldingRinse the mould with cold water rather than oiling it. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight, then dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a cold platter.
- Yield and serviceScaled to a quart mould this would serve roughly six to eight as a luncheon or buffet dish, though the parent recipe governs the actual quantity. Serve it cold with the mushroom sauce alongside, and keep it refrigerated until the moment it goes out, since a cream-and-gelatin mousse softens quickly at room temperature.
The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from the pattern and magazine house that published The Delineator, and it was aimed squarely at the household that entertained at luncheon without a large staff. Cold moulded mousses, mayonnaises and aspics fill this part of the book because they could be made the day before, turned out whole, and carried to the table looking like a good deal more work than they were. Mousse is simply French for foam, and the name marks the difference between this and the older forcemeat: the whipped cream is what makes it a mousse rather than a potted meat. A chicken recipe is followed immediately by "do the same with ham," the technique evidently being understood as a general one, applicable to more than a single meat.