No. 1539

Veal Palates a la Sevigne

Palais de Veau a la Sevigne

Soak well six veal palates for six hours, then parboil them in boiling water, afterward throwing them into cold water. Scrape the palates with the dull edge of a knife, carefully removing all the white skin from the top as well as the black one found underneath, and wash again in several waters. Braise them in a mirepoix stock (No. 419) for two hours; set them under a weight, pare them oval-shaped and cover with a quenelle forcemeat (No. 92) dredging the surface with chopped truffles. Place the palates in a buttered sautoir and heat them on a moderate fire; dress in a circle around an empty croustade and fill the croustade with a preparation of supreme sauce, escalops of foies-gras, truffles and mushrooms. Serve more of the supreme sauce (No. 547) separately.

← No. 1538 Neck of Veal au Blanc Veal No. 1540 Veal Palates, Epicurean Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a composed banquet dish built from four separate preparations, and Ranhofer assumes you have the mirepoix stock, quenelle forcemeat and supreme sauce already standing in the kitchen. The hinge is the cleaning: a palate that has not been thoroughly scraped of both skins is unpleasant no matter how well it is braised.

Veal palatesThe hard palate cut from the roof of a calf's mouth, sold as offal and long gone from ordinary butcher counters. A specialist or halal butcher may order them; expect to buy them frozen, and expect them to arrive uncleaned.
The two skinsAfter parboiling and shocking in cold water, the whitish membrane on top and the dark one beneath both have to come off with the back of a knife. Skipping this leaves a tough, grey-tasting surface that braising will not fix, which is why the recipe insists on washing in several changes of water afterward.
Mirepoix stockNo. 419 is a braising preparation of diced vegetables and cured pork moistened with wine and stock, rather than the dry vegetable dice the word means today. Any well-flavoured veal or chicken braising liquid with aromatics and a glass of white wine will serve the same purpose.
Two hours, then a weightPalates are collagen; they need long moist heat to turn gelatinous. Pressing them flat under a weighted tray while they cool sets them firm enough to be pared into neat ovals, and this step cannot be rushed if the shaping is to hold.
Quenelle forcemeatNo. 92 is a pounded forcemeat of the kind used for quenelles, here spread as a coating rather than shaped into dumplings. A fine mousseline of chicken breast, cream and egg white behaves the same way and sets when heated.
Sautoir and moderate fireA sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan. "Moderate" here means enough heat to set the forcemeat coating through without colouring it, roughly a bare simmer's worth from below; if it browns, the truffle dredging burns.
CroustadeA hollow case of fried bread or baked pastry, served empty and filled at the last moment so it does not soften. The palates are arranged in a circle round it.
Supreme sauceNo. 547, a chicken velouté finished with cream and butter. It is used twice — bound with the foie gras, truffle and mushroom garnish inside the case, and passed separately in a sauceboat, so allow for both.
YieldSix palates give six neat ovals, served in Ranhofer's kitchen as one entrée among many courses.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, where Charles Ranhofer cooked for some thirty years, and dishes like this one exist to show what a brigade could do with a cheap part of the animal. Palates were standard European restaurant offal through the nineteenth century — Carême and Gouffé both treat them at length — valued precisely because long braising turns their collagen silky while the neutral flavour takes on whatever sauce surrounds it. The name honours Madame de Sévigné, the seventeenth-century letter-writer whose name was attached to a great many nineteenth-century garnishes without any documented connection to the dishes themselves; like à la Soubise or à la Mirabeau, it functioned as a menu label rather than an attribution. That a dish combining scraped calf palate with foie gras and truffles could be sent out as a light entrée says a good deal about both the length of a Delmonico's menu and the era's willingness to eat every part of an animal, provided the kitchen had labour enough to make it elegant.