No. 2314

Patty a la Bontoux—Large, Hot

Gros Pate Chaud a la Bontoux

Make a pie crust in a mold, imitating the pinchings of a Strasburg pate de foies-gras pie with a pate de foies-gras pie paste (No. 135). Cover the inside with buttered paper and fill it with rice, cover with a round of paper, moisten the edges, and cover with a lid of the same paste, fasten to the crust of paste, cut off the surplus around, pinch the edges, decorate the dome with leaves of noodle paste (No. 142), and in the center place an imitation artichoke made of the same paste; set it in a moderate oven after egging over twice, and when done remove the lid, empty and egg the exterior surfaces, then let attain a fine golden color. In case there be an empty foies-gras pie crust on hand it can be utilized. Fill either one or the other with a bed of macaroni mingled with reduced veloute sauce (No. 415) and tomatoes, finished with butter, parmesan, and meat glaze (No. 402); mix in also with the macaroni an escalop of foies-gras, truffles and hare quenelles made with hare forcemeat. This is made like game forcemeat, substituting hare for game (No. 91). Roll in sheets of buttered paper, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and when poached remove the paper and cut into thick slices. Heat the garnishing well without boiling, and with it fill the crust.

← No. 2313 Sweetbread Patty a la Mcallister—Large, Hot Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2315 Eel Pie—Hot →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a raised pastry case built in a mold, baked empty, then filled at the last moment with a hot macaroni ragout. The pastry and the filling are two separate jobs, and the only one with a narrow margin is the final reheating.

The hinge: heat the filling, never boil itThe garnish is velouté finished with butter, parmesan and meat glaze, bound around macaroni and holding poached quenelles and slices of foie gras. Brought to a boil the sauce breaks, the parmesan strings and the quenelles tighten and weep fat. Warm it gently, stirring, until it steams and no further.
"A moderate oven"Conventionally read as somewhere around 350F, though Ranhofer gives no figure. The case is large and needs to dry through to the center of the walls; timing will depend entirely on the size of the mold, and the dome may need covering if it colors early.
Rice as ballast, not as an ingredientThis is blind baking. The buttered paper lines the case, the rice fills it so the walls cannot slump, and the paper round goes on before the lid. The rice is discarded or kept for future blind baking; it will be too dry and scorched to eat.
The pasteNo. 135 is Ranhofer's foie gras pie paste, a stiff paste made for raised pies, worked so it can be molded and pinched. It is structural pastry, not short pastry; do not substitute a tender pie dough or the case will collapse when you empty it.
EggingEgg wash twice before baking, then again on the outside after the lid is removed and the case emptied, returning it to the oven briefly for color. The second gloss is what makes the finished case look lacquered.
Quenelles rolled in paperThe three-quarters of an inch is the diameter of the roll, not the thickness of the paper. Roll the hare forcemeat into a cylinder in buttered parchment, twist the ends, poach in barely trembling water until firm, cool slightly, unwrap and cut into thick slices. Hare is available from game dealers; rabbit gives a paler, milder forcemeat.
Meat glazeNo. 402 is glace de viande — brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets rubbery when cold. A teaspoon or two carries a great deal of salt and savor; add it last and taste before seasoning further.
Foie grasAn "escalop" here is most likely neat slices of cooked foie gras, folded in whole at the end. Raw lobe would render into the sauce.
YieldA large case of this kind will serve eight to twelve as a course, though Ranhofer gives no number. It should go to table promptly once filled, as the crust softens.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working codex, cross-referenced like an engineering manual — the paste, the velouté, the forcemeat and the glaze all live at their own numbers elsewhere in the book. The dish belongs to the tradition of the Strasbourg pâté de foie gras, the ornate raised crust that Alsatian houses sent out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as luxury export goods, packed in their own pastry as a kind of edible crate. Ranhofer is openly making an imitation of one: the pinched sides, the noodle-paste leaves and the sculpted artichoke on the dome all copy the look of the commercial article, and he cheerfully notes that an empty foie gras crust already in the larder will do just as well. Who Bontoux was is not recorded; Delmonico's dishes were frequently named for patrons or associates, but no identification can be offered here.