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Timbale of Crayfish
In order to have this dish sufficient for a large party a great number of crayfish are required for it. Having picked out the tails of something like one hundred and fifty crayfish, brush each one over with some warmed crayfish butter. Have ready some very clear savoury jelly and a large timbale mould; warm the jelly to the liquid state, pick up each tail with a larding needle and dip into the jelly; then arrange them neatly around the mould; the jelly will cause them to adhere. When the top is reached (remember the mound will be upside down and should be packed in ice) leave the jelly fixing the tails to set. Pick out all the meat from the claws and bodies and chop up very finely; mix this mince with enough warm jelly to fill the timbale and leave that also to set. When the jelly is firm, dip the mould for an instant in tepid water, wipe it and then turn the timbale out on to a dish. Garnish with croutons of jelly and an attelette decorated with truffles.
A cold buffet centrepiece in the French grand-service manner: crayfish tails set in aspic against the walls of a mould, the rest of the meat bound as a mince in the middle. The hinge is temperature control — the jelly must be barely liquid when you dip the tails, and the mould must stay cold, or the pattern slides.
- Cook the crayfish firstThe recipe assumes boiled crayfish waiting in the larder. Simmer them in salted court-bouillon 3-4 minutes until the shells turn red, then cool before picking. Whole crayfish yield very little: 150 crayfish might give something in the region of a pound of picked meat, depending on their size.
- ScaleNo yield is stated, but 150 crayfish and a large timbale mould point to a buffet piece for 20 or more. A one-quart mould and about 40 crayfish gives a proportionate version for six to eight.
- Crayfish butterMade by pounding the roasted shells with softened butter, melting the mixture, and straining it through muslin into cold water so the fat sets clean. "Warmed" here means just soft and brushable, not hot — hot butter will melt the jelly.
- Savoury jellyA clarified fish or light veal stock set with gelatin, which needed to be crystal clear to show off the tails. Modern equivalent: about 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin per 2 cups of well-flavoured, egg-white-clarified stock, firm enough to unmould but not rubbery.
- Working temperatureAspic dips at roughly 75-80F — syrupy, not warm. Above that it dissolves the layer already set; below, it strings and clouds. Keep the bowl of jelly over tepid water and the mould itself in an ice bath, as directed.
- Larding needleUsed only as a handle so warm fingers never touch the tail. A trussing needle, a thin skewer or a cocktail fork does the same job.
- "Upside down"You are building the finished presentation in reverse: what you pack against the bottom of the mould becomes the crown of the turned-out timbale. Start the tails there and work up the sides in overlapping rings.
- UnmouldingAn instant in tepid water means two or three seconds, then wipe dry and invert. Longer and the surface tails will shift and the outer jelly will go dull.
- Attelette and croutons of jellyAn attelette (hâtelet) is an ornamental silver skewer, stuck upright in the timbale and threaded with truffle — pure nineteenth-century display, and safely omitted. Croutons of jelly are firm aspic turned out in a shallow tray, then cut into neat triangles or diamonds to ring the dish.
- Holding itAn aspic left standing at room temperature on a warm buffet is both structurally and microbiologically doomed. Assemble it a day ahead if you like, keep it refrigerated, and put it out shortly before it is eaten.
Crayfish — écrevisses — were a fixture of French luxury cooking through the nineteenth century, prized as much for the colour their shells gave to butters, sauces and garnishes as for the small amount of meat in the tail. Cold moulded work of this kind was the showpiece of the garde-manger, the pantry station that handled aspics, chaud-froids and buffet decoration, and it flourished in the era when a hotel supper was judged partly on how it looked from across the room. Oscar Tschirky was maître d'hôtel rather than chef at the Waldorf, and his 1896 book largely records the repertoire of the hotel's kitchens; the truffle-tipped attelette and the diamonds of cut jelly place this squarely in the Escoffier-era grammar of ornament.