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Baked Ravioles
Take one-fourth pound of veal, four ounces of calf's liver, three ounces of sausage-meat, four ounces of either beef-marrow or calf's-kidney fat, and a little mixed powdered herbs; mince all very fine, season with salt and pepper, and pound in a mortar; add a handful of spinach, which has been blanched, boiled, drained, and warmed in butter the same quantity of curd cheese, which has been squeezed in a cloth, so as to extract all the milk, and pound again; then stir in the yolks of two eggs, and whisk up the whites and add them to it. Make some short paste as for rissoles, and cut it into small squares; wet the edges and fold them over a little of the forcemeat placed in the center, and poach in boiling stock for five minutes; then drain, place on a dish, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese, moisten with stock, brown in the oven, and serve very hot.
A Genoese-style meat and spinach ravioli filling, written for a hotel brigade that had a mortar, a stockpot and a salamander always going. The quantities are given by weight, which helps, but the dough and the yield are left entirely to the cook.
- The hinge: finish by temperature, not by clockThe hinge: check it is cooked through -- five minutes' poaching may not be enough to bring a raw veal, liver and sausage forcemeat through, particularly in larger parcels. Treat the poaching as a first stage and the oven browning as part of the cooking, and satisfy yourself the filling is cooked before serving.
- "Short paste as for rissoles"Not a shortcrust in the modern pie sense. The book does not specify the dough, and period rissole pastes varied; what matters here is that it be firm and rolled thin. Roll it as thin as you can still handle, or the parcels turn heavy.
- Curd cheeseA fresh unripened cheese, drained hard in a cloth. Whole-milk ricotta pressed dry overnight, or dry farmer's cheese, is the closest supermarket match. "The same quantity" refers to the handful of spinach, so roughly equal volumes of the two.
- Beef marrow and calf's kidney fatBoth are fat carriers that keep a lean veal forcemeat moist. Marrow bones are widely sold; kidney suet may need a butcher's order. Plain beef suet works in the same proportion, about 4 oz.
- Mixed powdered herbsA dried house blend of the era, typically thyme, marjoram, bay and sometimes sage, ground fine. A teaspoon of dried thyme and marjoram with a pinch of powdered bay is in keeping.
- The mortarThe two poundings exist to make an emulsified, sliceable forcemeat. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, and keep the fat cold or the mixture breaks.
- Whipped egg whitesFolding in beaten whites lightens the filling. Fold gently at the end; if you beat them into the mass in the processor you lose the whole point.
- Browning"brown in the oven" here means a short spell in a hot oven, or under the broiler, only until the Parmesan colors; the book gives no temperature. Moisten with stock first so the pasta does not dry out.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield, and the dough and the size of the squares are left to the cook. Counting the spinach, cheese and eggs, the filling comes to appreciably more than a pound.
Oscar Tschirky's kitchen at the Waldorf was a French-trained one, and the spelling here, ravioles, is a French form rather than the Italian ravioli. The filling itself resembles a Genoese ripieno: a little meat, marrow or suet, blanched spinach and drained fresh curd. Its appearance in a grand New York hotel book at the turn of the century marks a moment when Italian dishes were entering American fine dining by way of the French repertoire. The last step, poaching in stock and then gratinating with Parmesan under high heat, is a hotel move: the parcels can be poached in advance during service prep and finished to order in minutes.