No. 1328

Beef Palates in Tortue

Palais de Boeuf en Tortue

Prepare the beef palates as explained in a la bechamel (No. 1326), lay them under a weight, then cut in oval-shaped pieces three and one-half by two inches, either with a knife or a pastry cutter. Cover one side with a dome-shaped layer of quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), mixing in with it a fourth of its quantity of cooked fine herbs (No. 385). Lay them in a stewpan one beside the other, the forcemeat side on top, and pour into the bottom of the pan a good half-glaze (No. 400) with Madeira, and heat slowly in a mild oven. When the forcemeat is hard to the touch, cover the surface with some Madeira sauce, return the palates to the oven for one moment to glaze, then arrange them crown-shaped round the bottom of a dish hollow in the center and raised edges. Fill the center with a garnishing made as follows: To some Madeira sauce (No. 492), add a pinch of cayenne pepper, some forcemeat quenelles, a few pickled gherkins cut olive-shaped, turned mushrooms heads (No. 118), slices of cooked veal tongue one inch in diameter by an eighth of an inch in thickness. Garnish the edge of the dish with fried egg-yolks and small larded and glazed sweet-breads (No. 1575).

← No. 1327 Beef Palates Baked, Chevreuse Beef No. 1329 Ribs of Beef a la Bristed →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a composed garnish dish from Ranhofer's Epicurean, built on a cut almost nobody sells anymore and cross-referenced to half a dozen other numbered recipes. What follows is what a modern cook needs in order to read it.

Beef palatesThe hard palate from the roof of an ox's mouth, now a special-order item where it can be found at all; halal and Latin American butchers are the likeliest source. The preparation Ranhofer sends you back for (No. 1326) follows the classical route: long soaking in cold water, blanching, scraping off the tough outer skin while hot, then simmering until a knife goes through easily. Nothing in this recipe works if that step is short.
Press them cold"Lay them under a weight" is the hinge. Palates are gelatinous and cut into clean ovals far more easily once they have been pressed flat under a weight; the recipe does not say so, but pressing and cutting them cold will make the job easier. Then let the forcemeat do the rest.
Half-glaze and Madeira sauceHalf-glaze (No. 400) is demi-glace: reduced brown stock with an espagnole base. Madeira sauce (No. 492) is that same demi-glace finished with Madeira. A good store-bought demi-glace reduced with dry or medium-dry Madeira gets you close enough; sercial or verdelho, not a sweet bual.
Quenelle forcemeatNo. 89 is a veal or poultry forcemeat pounded with panada and egg. A food processor does in two minutes what the mortar did in twenty. "Cooked fine herbs" (No. 385) is a stewed mixture of shallot, parsley and mushroom reduced dry — closer to a fines-herbes duxelles than to raw chopped herbs, and it should be cold before it goes into the forcemeat.
A mild ovenA low oven, somewhere in the region of 300-325F in modern terms, though Ranhofer gives no temperature. The point is to set the forcemeat domes gently in the moist heat of the sauce below without letting them swell and crack. Go by the recipe's own test: they are done when the forcemeat is hard, or firm and springy, to the touch.
Turned mushrooms and olive-shaped gherkinsBoth are knife work rather than ingredients: mushroom caps fluted in a spiral with a small paring knife, gherkins pared into small pointed ovals. Skipping the shaping costs nothing in flavor and everything in the look, which is the entire purpose of the dish.
Fried egg-yolksThe recipe gives no method. The usual reading is hard-cooked yolks separated from the whites and browned in butter; whichever way you take it, the yolks need to be set firm before they meet the fat.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives none. Figure three ovals per person as a hot entree, so a 12-piece crown serves four. Everything must go out very hot in a warmed deep dish; palates set to a stiff jelly the moment they cool.

A Little History

En tortue means "turtle-style," and in nineteenth-century French kitchens it did not indicate that turtle was present — it named a fixed garnish borrowed from the classic tête de veau en tortue: a Madeira sauce sharpened with cayenne, plus quenelles, mushrooms, gherkins, sliced tongue, fried egg yolks and crayfish or sweetbreads. Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, simply swaps calf's head for beef palates and keeps the garnish largely as it was, though his version takes sweetbreads and no crayfish. Palates appear repeatedly in his beef chapter, and once soaked, peeled and pressed they take on a firm gelatinous texture that holds a dome of forcemeat beautifully. Their disappearance from American menus is often attributed less to taste than to changes in how animals are slaughtered and butchered, though that explanation is more supposition than documented fact.