No. 17

Butter for Buttering Molds

Beurre Pour Beurrer les Moules

Melt one pound of veal kidney suet by chopping it up finely, then putting it into a saucepan with half a pint of water on a slow fire, stir occasionally to prevent its fastening on to the bottom of the saucepan and when the fat is limpid, add the same weight of fresh, saltless butter; stir until the butter and fat are perfectly clear.

Cold Butter for Buttering Molds.-It suffices only to knead some unsalted butter on the table to extract all its moisture and give it body, then put it into a cloth, sponge it off, put it in a pan in a warm temperature and work it until it becomes soft as cream.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A working preparation rather than a dish: a half-suet, half-butter grease that clings to cold metal molds without pooling or turning rancid, plus a cold-worked butter for the same purpose. Both are still useful for timbales, charlottes and aspic borders.

The hingeRender the suet gently until the fat runs clear and the water has cooked off — no browning, no frying sound. Any residual water in the fat will bead on the mold and leave bare patches where the forcemeat or jelly sticks.
QuantitiesOne pound of suet to half a pint of water (one cup) at the start, then one pound of unsalted butter added after rendering. The water is only there to keep the suet from catching; it evaporates. This makes the better part of two pounds of mold butter, far more than a home cook needs — quarter it.
Veal kidney suetThe hard fat surrounding the kidneys of a calf, prized because it is bland. Butchers rarely stock it; beef kidney suet is the usual substitute, though it is harder-setting and tastes more strongly of beef.
"Fresh, saltless butter"Unsalted butter, and 'fresh' in the sense of sweet rather than rancid; against a delicate mousse you want the butter as neutral as possible.
StrainingRanhofer does not mention it, but strain the finished mixture through muslin while liquid. Cracklings and connective tissue left behind will show as dark specks on the turned-out surface.
"Slow fire"Low heat — the lowest burner setting, or a heavy pan set on a diffuser. Rendering a pound of suet takes 30 to 45 minutes.
The cold methodKneading and blotting unsalted butter in a cloth is a way of removing buttermilk and water so the butter creams smoothly and does not spit. "A warm temperature" means a warm corner of the kitchen, not a warm oven; the butter should be plastic, not melted.
Keeping and usePour the rendered mixture into a jar and refrigerate; it keeps for weeks. Brush it on cold, brush it thin, and chill the mold before filling so the coating sets and holds. For most modern purposes a straightforward brushing of clarified butter, or a parchment liner, does the same job.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent over thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole apparatus of a great nineteenth-century kitchen — which is why it opens with dozens of numbered "elementary methods" like this one before any dish appears. Mold butter belonged to an era of molded cookery: galantines, chaud-froids, jellied borders, timbale cases and Charlotte russes, all built in tinned copper forms that had to release cleanly at the table or the whole effect was lost. Suet was mixed into the butter because it sets harder and higher-melting than butter alone, so the coating stayed put on a mold handled in a hot kitchen. The technique fell away with the molds themselves, as service moved from the elaborate cold buffet toward plated courses through the twentieth century.