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Prawns in Aspic
Place in the bottom of a mould packed in ice, a little slightly warmed aspic jelly, decorate it with a little lobster coral, chopped white of hard-boiled eggs rubbed through a sieve and cover this over with some more of the jelly and prawns and fill up the mould with the jelly. When it has become firmly set, turn out onto a dish, garnish with wedge-shaped croutons of aspic jelly and small quantities of lettuce finely-chopped, surmounted by prawns in their shells.
Aspic of Quails, Empress Select half a dozen prime quails, or as many as may be required, truss and lard them as for roasting, place them in a stewpan containing four ounces of lean ham, half a dozen allspice and blade of mace, two or three bay leaves, a small carrot, a chopped onion and a small quantity of thyme and parsley; moisten with one pint of chicken stock and one wineglassful of sherry. Put on a tight-fitting cover and let them simmer gently until thoroughly cooked. When done, remove the stewpan from the stove and allow the quails to remain in the liquor until cold. Then remove and wipe them on a clean cloth; cut each quail into halves and fill up the interior with foies gras, dip each half into reduced supreme sauce, and just before they commence to set, sprinkle over some chopped black truffles and tongue. When set, place them upon a flat dish, allowing plenty of room in between them, pour over a small quantity of liquid aspic jelly, repeating it until the quails have a thick coating over them; place them upon the ice so as to get them thoroughly set. Just before they are wanted for the table, trim them round carefully with the point of a knife, dish them upon a cone of rice which has been previously prepared, garnish in the center with a garnishing of cockscombs and small truffles, place round the base croutons of aspic with chopped red aspic in between, and serve.
Two recipes have run together on this page: a simple layered prawn aspic, followed by the far more elaborate Aspic of Quails, Empress. Both assume you already have a clarified aspic jelly on hand, which is the real work.
- The hinge: build in thin layersEach layer must be fully set before the next liquid aspic goes on, or the decoration floats and the layers marble together. Pour no more than a quarter-inch at a time and give it 15-20 minutes in the refrigerator, or a few minutes over ice as Oscar directs.
- Aspic jellyA strongly gelatinous, clarified stock -- veal or chicken for the quails, shellfish or fish for the prawns -- seasoned, often with sherry, and clarified with egg white. With modern low-gelatin stock you will need added gelatin: roughly 1 to 1.5 tablespoons powdered gelatin per pint for a jelly firm enough to unmould. "Slightly warmed" means barely liquid and cool to the touch, not hot, or it melts what is already set.
- A mould packed in iceIce at the workbench was the ordinary way to set cold work of this kind. A metal mould in the refrigerator does the same job; ice water in a bowl is still faster if you are working through many layers.
- Lobster coralThe dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral red when cooked. It is used here purely as a red colourant and garnish. If you cannot get it, paprika-tinted aspic or a strip of blanched red pepper serves the same decorative purpose.
- WineglassfulIn American cookbooks of this period a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces, a quarter cup. The quails take one pint of chicken stock to that.
- Larding the quailsThreading strips of pork fat through the breast, needed when birds were roasted hard and dry. Since these quails are gently braised in covered liquid and then served cold, larding is optional; a thin barding of bacon tied over the breast is easier and does as much.
- Supreme sauce, and "reduced"A velouté cream, here reduced until it will coat and cling as it cools -- effectively a chaud-froid. Whisking a little of the aspic jelly into the sauce is the standard way to make it set on the birds.
- CockscombsBlanched, peeled rooster combs, a standard garnish in nineteenth-century grande cuisine and essentially unobtainable now. Small poached mushroom caps or turned carrots give the same silhouette on the rice cone.
- Yield and servingThe quail dish as written serves six as a cold entrée; the prawn mould's yield depends entirely on the size of mould, since the recipe gives no quantities. Gelatin dishes on a buffet are a genuine risk once they warm -- keep both refrigerated until the moment of service and do not leave them out more than an hour.
Oscar Tschirky came to the Waldorf as maître d'hôtel in 1893 and put his name to The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf in 1896, a nine-hundred-page compilation aimed as much at aspiring hotel cooks as at housekeepers. Cold work in aspic was the showpiece of the period's hotel kitchen: it could be prepared hours ahead, held on ice, and carried whole into the dining room, which is exactly what a large à la carte restaurant needed. The dishes carry the naming conventions of Franco-American grande cuisine, where a title like "Empress" signals a set of luxury markers -- foie gras, truffle, tongue, cockscombs -- rather than any particular technique. That this page runs two recipes into one paragraph is an artifact of the book itself, which was set in dense continuous type with headings that are easy to lose.