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Goose's Fat Liver in Shells
Take a half or three-quarters of a fat liver and chop it into pieces, small dice or squares and put them into a saucepan with half their bulk of chopped mushrooms. Sprinkle over a little salt and pepper and place the lid on the pan; put three-quarters of a pint of bechamel sauce into another saucepan and place it over a quick fire to reduce it, keeping it stirred constantly and adding slowly a few tablespoonfuls of melted glaze until the sauce is soft enough without being too thick; then add it to the fat liver mixture in the other saucepan and place the pan on the side of the fire where it will warm without boiling. Fill ten tableshells with the mixture, smooth the surface, cover them with breadcrumbs and salamander, or place them in a slow oven to brown. Serve the shells on a folded napkin on a dish, and serve.
A late-Victorian hotel service dish: diced foie gras bound in a reduced sauce, filled into shells and glazed. Almost everything here hinges on heat control, because the liver must never boil.
- "Fat liver" is foie grasA whole fattened goose liver runs roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb, so half to three-quarters of one is somewhere around 12 to 24 oz. Duck foie gras is far more common now and can be used in its place. Note that sale is restricted in some jurisdictions.
- Never let it boilFoie gras above a bare simmer renders out its fat and the dice collapse into greasy threads. The instruction to set the pan "on the side of the fire" means the lowest possible heat, no bubbles; treat it as folding the liver into hot sauce rather than cooking it in sauce.
- Bring the mixture up before fillingThe liver dice get very little direct heat here. Have the béchamel and glaze genuinely hot when they go in, and hold the filled pan long enough that the mixture is hot throughout before it goes into the shells.
- Three-quarters of a pintAbout 1 1/2 cups of béchamel, reduced hard until it will just coat a spoon. Reduce it in a wide pan rather than a saucepan so it happens quickly without scorching.
- Melted glazeGlaze is glace de viande: veal or poultry stock reduced to a syrup that sets solid when cold. A good commercial demi-glace or a few spoons of your own reduced stock does the work. It is there for depth and gloss, not for volume; a few tablespoons is the whole quantity.
- Tableshells and the salamanderTableshells are scallop shells or small metal coquille dishes, about 1/3 cup each. A salamander was an iron plate heated red and passed over the surface; a broiler set high, with the shells close to the element for a minute or two, gives the same brown crust.
- The "slow oven" is the slower routeRoughly 300 to 325F on the usual reading, which browns crumbs only after some minutes and risks overheating the liver. The broiler is the better reading of Oscar's first choice.
- MushroomsHalf the bulk of the liver, chopped fine. Cook and drain them separately first if they are watery, or their liquid will thin the sauce you just spent time reducing.
- YieldTen shells, one per person as a hot first course. Serve immediately; the mixture stiffens and the crust softens within minutes.
Foie gras served hot in shells belongs to the grand-hotel repertoire associated with Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf and then the Waldorf-Astoria from the 1890s onward, whose name the book was issued under, and where French kitchen technique was the house language and a dish's prestige came as much from its garnish and presentation as its content. The coquille format into a scallop shell, crumbed and glazed, set on a folded napkin allowed a rich preparation to be portioned, browned to order and carried out looking composed, and the same treatment was applied to oysters, crab, sweetbreads and chicken. Fattened goose liver reached American kitchens largely from Strasbourg and the southwest of France, and duck has since displaced goose as the usual source. The reliance on glace de viande, a stockpot reduction, is a reminder that this book records a professional brigade's work rather than domestic cookery.