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Chicken in Jelly
Draw and clean a chicken and cut it up with the exception of the breast, which should be left whole. Put the pieces in a stewpan with the liver, heart and gizzard; add two bay leaves, a small bunch of parsley and thyme and half of a small lemon; pour in water to cover, season to taste with salt pepper, and boil the chicken very gently until tender. When cooked take it out of the liquor, cut the meat off the breast in four long strips and cut the remainder of the meat into small pieces. Put the bones back in the saucepan with half an ounce of gelatine that has been dissolved in a small quantity of water and boil gently for fifteen or twenty minutes longer. Strain the liquor through a jelly bag and pour sufficient into a deep pie dish to cover the bottom. When the jelly has set, arrange on the top of it a device in hard boiled eggs, put the largest slice of chicken in the center of the dish, arrange some of the other slices around it, pour in another layer of the jelly, and leave it until set. Then put in the remainder of the pieces of meat, arrange them tastefully, pour the remainder of the jelly carefully over, and put it in a cold place. When the jelly is firm dip the dish in warm water, wipe it and turn the contents over on a dish upon which is a folded napkin, garnish with a few sprigs of parsley, and serve.
Jelly of Pig's Feet and Ears Wash and clean carefully the feet and ears of a pig and put them in a basin of water to soak for several hours. Then put them in a saucepan with a little water and boil over a slow fire for four or five hours, until the feet and ears are quite done and the bones of the former can be easily extracted; then add a teacupful of chopped sage and parsley in equal proportions, one-half saltspoonful of powdered mace, a teaspoonful of salt and half as much pepper. Set the pan again over a slow fire and cook slowly until the herbs are tender; then pour the whole into a melon mould, and, when set, turn it out, and serve.
Two cold jellied dishes from the Waldorf's kitchen: a chicken aspic set in layers, and a rustic pig's-foot brawn that sets on its own collagen. Both are straightforward, but the chicken depends entirely on getting a clear, well-seasoned stock.
- Clarity is the hingeAspic lives or dies on a transparent stock, and "boil very gently" means a bare shiver at the surface — a rolling boil emulsifies fat and albumin and turns the jelly cloudy. Skim scum as it rises, and strain through a cloth-lined sieve without pressing the solids.
- Half an ounce of gelatineThat is about 14 g, or two standard quarter-ounce envelopes of powdered gelatine, and it will set roughly a quart of liquid firmly enough to unmould. Modern practice is to bloom it in cold water and stir it into the hot strained stock off the heat rather than boiling it with the bones for twenty minutes, since prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's setting power.
- Chicken stock sets itselfA stock made from a whole bird's bones and feet-rich trimmings will often gel unaided. Test by chilling a spoonful for ten minutes; if it firms up, you can cut the added gelatine by half and get a softer, more delicate jelly.
- "A device in hard boiled eggs"This means a decorative pattern of egg slices laid on the first set layer — a rosette, a ring, a border. Because the mould is inverted at the end, whatever you arrange first becomes the top of the finished dish.
- "A cold place"In 1896 that was a larder or icebox. Set and store the finished aspic in the refrigerator; a poultry jelly held at room temperature is a good growth medium. Allow three to four hours to set, and overnight is better.
- UnmouldingA three-second dip in warm water is enough — longer and the outer layer slumps. Dry the outside, run a thin knife round the rim, and invert onto a chilled platter.
- Season above your instinctCold food tastes flatter than hot. Taste the strained stock while warm and salt it slightly more assertively than seems right, or the set jelly will read as bland.
- YieldOne chicken makes enough for six to eight as a cold luncheon or buffet dish, served with mustard, pickles or a green salad.
- For the pig's feet and earsNo added gelatine is needed; four to five hours of slow simmering extracts more than enough collagen from the skin and trotters. A "teacupful" of chopped herbs is roughly three-quarters of a cup, and a saltspoonful is a quarter teaspoon — the sage is assertive, so consider weighting the mix toward parsley on a first attempt.
- Sourcing trotters and earsBoth are usually available from butchers and Asian or Latin American markets, often already split and cleaned. Scrub, then blanch briefly and discard the first water for a cleaner-tasting brawn.
Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria, published his Cook Book in 1896, and its cold larder chapters reflect a kitchen built around the buffet, the ball supper and the private dining room, where dishes had to look composed and hold for hours without a chafing dish. Layered aspics were the workhorse of that service: the layering exists so that the garnish stays suspended rather than floating to the surface, a technique French kitchens had refined through the nineteenth century alongside chaud-froid and moulded galantines. The pig's-foot jelly beside it comes from an older and humbler line — the same thrift-driven brawn, souse and head cheese made in farmhouses on both sides of the Atlantic at killing time, relying on the natural gelatine in skin and cartilage before packaged gelatine was cheap. Oscar sets the two side by side, the ballroom dish and the economy of the back kitchen, without changing technique between them.