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Thickened Butter
Place in a saucepan the yolks of a couple of eggs and break them gently with a spoon, adding slowly four ounces of butter melted but not browned, and set the pan over a slow fire, stirring well until of the required consistence. Gravies. Garlic Flavoring for Gravies Peel a few cloves of garlic, plunge them into a saucepan of boiling water, let them remain for five minutes, take out and put them in another pan containing boiling water, and boil for five minutes longer. Continue in this way until the cloves of garlic are quite tender; add a pinch of salt to the liquor, mix it in with gravy in equal proportions and it is ready for use. Garlic Flavoring for a Salad (Chapon).
Cut from a loaf of bread a thin crust two inches long by one inch wide and sprinkle over a little salt. Rub a peeled clove of garlic over both sides of the crust, lay it at the bottom of the salad bowl, place the salad over and stir it about.
Three short items run together here: a butter-and-yolk thickener, a boiled garlic infusion for gravy, and the rubbed crust (chapon) for salad. The first is the one that can fail, and it fails fast.
- The hinge: gentle heatTwo yolks and four ounces of butter will set into a custard-like liaison somewhere around 160-175F and scramble not far above that. Use a heavy pan over the lowest burner setting, or set a bowl over barely simmering water, and pull it off the heat while it still slides.
- "A slow fire"On a coal range this meant the cooler end of the top, or the edge of the fire. Translate it as low direct heat with constant motion, not a simmer.
- Four ounces of butterThat is one stick, 113 g. Melt it just to liquid and let it cool slightly before it goes into the yolks; butter straight off the boil will curdle them no matter how well you stir.
- What it is forThis is a finishing thickener, not a sauce in its own right. Whisk it into a hot but not boiling gravy, soup or vegetable liquid off the heat to give body and gloss. Reboiling the finished liquid will break it.
- YieldSomewhat over half a cup of liaison, enough to enrich roughly a quart of sauce.
- The garlic blanchingSuccessive changes of boiling water were one recognised way to strip garlic of its sharpness. Three or four changes of five minutes each will leave the cloves soft and mild.
- "Equal proportions" with gravyRead this as equal parts garlic cooking liquor and gravy, which is a very dilute flavouring by modern taste. Add it by the spoonful and stop when the gravy tastes right rather than measuring.
- The chaponUse a dry, firm crust, not soft bread, or it will disintegrate into the leaves. Leave it in the bowl during dressing and remove it before serving.
"Thickened butter" is the plain English name for what a French kitchen brigade of Oscar Tschirky's day called a liaison — egg yolks bound with fat and used to finish a sauce, the same principle that underlies hollandaise and the classic finish for a blanquette. Its appearance in a Waldorf book alongside two garlic tricks is a reminder of how cautiously American hotel cooking of 1896 handled garlic: barely used at all, boiled through several waters until almost sweet, or reduced to a scent rubbed on a crust of bread. That crust, the chapon, is a French salad device, and it survives in French practice today for exactly the reason given here — it perfumes a salad without leaving anyone chewing garlic.