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Chaudfroid of Snipes
Singe and draw ten snipes, season their interiors, then put them aside with their heads. Cut into thin slices one-half pound of calf's liver and put these in a fryingpan with a little lard, toss them over the fire for a few minutes, then put in with them the tails of the snipes, a pinch of chopped onions, a few sprigs of sweet herbs and some trimmings of truffles, sprinkling over plenty of salt and pepper. When cooked leave the liver and trails till cool, then place them in a mortar with half their quantity of chopped fresh bacon and pound them. Add to the forcemeat two or three truffles cut into small pieces. Stuff the snipes with the liver mixture, roll them into oval shapes, sew them up, and fasten a strip of buttered paper around each. Line the bottom of a stewpan with some trimmings of bacon, put in the snipes, moisten them to half their height with some white wine and gravy made from the bones and trimmings of the snipes. Place a sheet of paper on the top, put on the lid, set it in the oven and braise the snipes for twenty minutes. When cooked, take out the snipes and let them cool, then remove the paper and strings and trim them neatly. Skim the fat off the cooking liquor, strain it through a fine hair-sieve into another stewpan, mix with it one-half pint of brown sauce and boil for fifteen or twenty minutes, skimming occasionally; then stir in with it half its quantity of aspic jelly. When the sauce is thick and smooth strain it through a sieve into another stewpan and leave it until nearly cool, then stand the stewpan on ice and stir it for a few minutes. Plunge the snipes in the sauce and cover them well with it; then arrange them on a baking sheet and leave until the sauce has set. In the meantime cook the heads of the birds, trim them, and glaze them with a paste brush dipped in melted glaze. Remove the snipes from the baking-dish, using a fork for the purpose, cut off all the superfluous sauce, and arrange them in the form of a dome on a small stand. Put one of the heads between each of the birds, separating them with chopped aspic jelly. The chaudfroid is then ready for serving.
A full-dress cold entrée from the Waldorf's larder, built on three separate preparations — a game forcemeat, a braise, and a setting sauce. The work is manageable if you make the aspic and brown sauce a day ahead.
- The hinge: sauce temperatureA chaudfroid succeeds or fails at the moment of coating. Stir the sauce over ice only until it thickens to the point where it coats a spoon and just holds a line; too warm and it runs off the birds, too cool and it sets in lumps and streaks. Keep a bowl of warm water nearby to loosen it if it tightens too far.
- Snipe are not a market birdWilson's snipe may be hunted in season in North America but is never sold commercially, so this dish depends on a hunter. Ten quail, or six to eight dressed woodcock if you have them, take the same treatment; quail carry more breast meat and will need closer to 25 minutes braised.
- "Tails" is a misprint for trailsThe trail is the intestine of a snipe or woodcock, traditionally cooked and pounded into the forcemeat for its flavour — the later line "leave the liver and trails till cool" confirms it. If the birds were drawn without keeping the trail, use the hearts, livers and gizzards instead.
- Measures and vesselsHalf a pint of brown sauce is one cup; "half its quantity of aspic" means about half as much melted aspic as there is finished sauce, though the recipe never says how much strained cooking liquor goes in with the brown sauce. A hair sieve is a fine-mesh strainer or chinois, and the stewpan wanted here is a wide, shallow braiser that holds the birds in one layer.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; a nineteenth-century range was judged by eye and hand. For a covered 20-minute braise with paper under the lid, something around 325F is a reasonable modern equivalent — enough to hold a bare simmer without reducing the wine and gravy to a glaze.
- Brown sauce, aspic and glazeThe brown sauce is espagnole; a good reduced veal demi-glace works. Aspic jelly is clarified, well-gelled stock — it must be firm enough to chop into dice for the garnish, so build it from roasted bones or reinforce a strong stock with gelatine. The "melted glaze" for the heads is glace de viande, stock reduced to a syrup.
- Truffle trimmingsKitchens working with whole truffles had peelings to spare. A small jarred black truffle, or a spoonful of truffle peelings with a few drops of their liquid, stands in for both the trimmings in the forcemeat and the diced pieces.
- Buttered paperParchment, buttered, tied or pinned around each stuffed bird to hold its oval shape through the braise; foil will do but tends to mark the skin. Trussing thread, not kitchen twine, for the sewing.
- Yield and serviceTen small birds make ten portions as a cold first course, or serve five as a main. Build the dome on a chilled base and keep it refrigerated until service — the coating softens quickly in a warm room.
- One practical warningWild-shot birds may carry shot pellets; check the breast and the pounded forcemeat before serving.
Chaud-froid means "hot-cold": the meat is cooked hot, then coated in a sauce built from its own cooking liquor and set with aspic to be eaten cold, a technique codified in the grand French kitchens of the nineteenth century and carried into American hotel cooking by chefs trained in that system. Snipe and woodcock were prized above almost all other game birds for the strong, faintly bitter flavour of the trail, which is why the entrails go into the forcemeat here rather than the bin. The mounted heads, glazed and set between the birds, are pure cuisine de présentation — the buffet display piece that a large hotel like the Waldorf turned out for banquets and late suppers in the 1890s, when a cold entrée was judged as much on its architecture as its taste. Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel whose name is on the book, was not the cook of these dishes; the 1896 volume collects what the Waldorf's kitchen brigade actually made, which is why the instructions read as notes between professionals rather than guidance for a home cook.