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Citron Blanc-Mange
Blanch one pound of sweet almonds, place them in a large mortar and pound them to a paste; to this paste add by degrees four or five tumblerfuls of water, mixing with the pestle. When well mixed strain it through a cloth, squeezing it well to get all the milk of almonds from the paste. Divide this milk of almonds into two equal parts. Grate the rind of a lemon on a quantity of lump-sugar, and continue until six ounces of sugar have been used, dissolving this sugar in one-half of the milk of almonds. In the remaining half of the milk of almonds dissolve six ounces of plain plain lump-sugar. Put one and one-half ounces of isingslass to soak in just enough cold water to cover it. When the sugar is thoroughly melted, strain each half of the milk of almonds, and when it is quite dissolved place a mould in ice and pour in white blanc-mange to the depth of three-quarters of an inch; let that set, and then pour in the same quantity of the other half, which ought to be a clear yellow; allow that to set also, and then pour in some more white, and so proceed, pouring in alternately white and yellow until the mould is full; unmould to serve after it has set thoroughly on ice.
A layered almond-milk jelly of the old French kind, built from scratch: nut milk pounded in a mortar, set with isinglass, striped white and lemon-yellow. The recipe as printed leaves out one crucial step, so read the points before starting.
- The missing stepOscar never says to add the soaked isinglass to the almond milk, but that is what must happen: melt the drained isinglass gently, divide it, and stir half into each sweetened, strained portion while both are warm. Nothing sets otherwise.
- Citron means lemonThe title is French. There is no candied citron peel in this dish -- the flavour and colour come from lemon zest rubbed into sugar.
- TumblerfulA tumbler of the period is roughly 8 fl oz, so four or five tumblerfuls is 4 to 5 cups of water to a pound of almonds. Start at 4 cups; a thinner milk makes a slack jelly.
- IsinglassDried sturgeon-bladder collagen, sold in leaves or shreds and still available from brewing suppliers. Its setting power is not equivalent to modern gelatine weight for weight, and 1 1/2 oz for roughly a quart is a firm, unmouldable set by Victorian standards; if substituting powdered gelatine, work from the gelatine maker's ratio rather than converting the ounces directly.
- Rubbing sugar on the zestGrating the rind onto lump sugar is the old oleo-saccharum method -- the sugar draws the citrus oil out of the peel. It gives a cleaner, stronger lemon note than zest stirred in loose, and it is worth doing properly rather than shortcutting with juice.
- Straining the almond milkSqueeze hard through a doubled cloth or a nut-milk bag. Any solids left in suspension will settle at the bottom of each layer and spoil the clean division between white and yellow.
- Building the layersEach 3/4-inch layer must be fully set and cold before the next goes on, and the next must be barely warm -- hot liquid will melt a channel through the layer beneath. Keep the two bowls of unset mixture somewhere just warm enough to stay fluid.
- The mould"Place a mould in ice" means a bowl of ice water around the outside; a refrigerator does the same work more slowly. To unmould, dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldUpwards of a quart of finished blanc-mange, enough for eight or so as a light dessert.
Blancmange began in medieval Europe as blanc manger, "white dish" -- a pounded mixture of almonds, rice and shredded white meat, often capon, served as much at a banquet's meat course as at its end. By the nineteenth century the meat had dropped away entirely and what remained was almond milk stiffened with isinglass or calf's-foot jelly, a showpiece for the moulds that crowded a well-equipped kitchen. Oscar Tschirky's version, from the Waldorf's own kitchen, is squarely in the French repertoire Carême and his successors codified: real almond milk pounded in a mortar rather than cornstarch and flavouring, and the striped layering that turned a jelly into architecture. The mortar work alone -- a pound of blanched almonds beaten to paste by hand -- is a reminder of how much cheap labour stood behind a hotel dessert in 1896.