No. 2316

Fat Liver Pie, Alsatian—Large, Hot

Gros Pate Chaud de Foies-Gras a l'Alsacienne

Line a hot pie mold (Fig. 152) with foundation paste (No. 135) made with egg-yolks, not having it too fine; pinch the edges prettily and fill it three quarters full with baking forcemeat (No. 81) mingled with half as much raw game quenelle forcemeat (No. 91); cover this forcemeat with a round of buttered paper, egg the edges of the pie and cook it in a slow oven for one hour, then take it out and suppress a part of the forcemeat; keep the pie warm. Select two fine halves of fat liver of equal size, season with salt, then butter them with a brush, cover with thin bards of fat pork and inclose in an envelope of paste pie (No. 144), fastening them on tightly so that the liver can thoroughly poach smothered; place them on a baking sheet and cook for an hour in a slack oven. Prepare a garnishing of coarse macaroni one and a quarter inches long; mix in some large Julienne of cooked beef tongue; also have eighteen uniform-sized peeled mushroom heads. After the livers have been taken out of the oven, unwrap and cut each half into crosswise slices slightly on the bias; between each one of these lay a fine slice of peeled truffle freshly cooked in Madeira. Arrange the livers to give them a nice shape, heat them in a slack oven, glazing with a brush. Take the pie from the heater and fill the empty space with the macaroni garnishing; lift up the slices of liver one by one with the aid of a palette, and dress them one beside the other on top of the garnishing; coat with a little Madeira sauce (No. 492) reduced with the truffle stock and then surround the base with the mushroom heads. Serve at the same time a sauce-boatful of Madeira sauce (No. 492).

← No. 2315 Eel Pie—Hot Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2317 Plover Pie—Large, Hot →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a Delmonico's showpiece rather than a dish: a raised crust baked as a container, a forcemeat lining, and two lobes of foie gras poached separately inside their own pastry jackets. Read it as three components assembled at the last minute.

The hinge: the paste envelope is cookwareThe pâte à pâté wrapped around the buttered, barded liver is a sealed jacket that lets the foie gras "poach smothered" in its own fat rather than render into the pan. It is discarded, not eaten. Modern equivalents are a tight double wrap of caul fat and foil, or a terrine cooked in a water bath.
Oven temperaturesRanhofer asks for a "slow" oven for the pie and a "slack" oven for the liver and gives no figures; both terms indicate a low oven, conventionally read as somewhere around 275-325F on a modern dial, but that is an approximation. Nothing in this recipe wants browning heat, and the liver in particular will melt away to fat and a shrunken core if pushed hard.
An hour is long for foie grasCurrent practice takes a whole lobe to an internal 115-120F, which in a low oven is a matter of 25-40 minutes depending on size. The full hour here assumes a large duck or goose liver, a cold start, and a cooler oven than most home ranges hold steady; use a probe rather than the clock.
The cross-referencesNo. 135 is the foundation paste, here specified as made with egg-yolks and not too fine; No. 81 is Ranhofer's baking forcemeat; No. 91 is his raw game quenelle forcemeat, used at half the quantity of the baking forcemeat. Any firm, well-seasoned pork forcemeat lightened with a third to a half of a raw game or poultry mousseline will stand in.
"Suppress a part of the forcemeat"After the shell is baked, scoop out enough of the interior stuffing to leave a lining against the crust. That cavity is what the macaroni garnish and sliced liver go into.
Bards of fat porkSheets of fatback cut thin, tied on to shield the liver. Ask a butcher for fatback or use caul fat; sliced bacon is smoked and will overwhelm the liver.
Coarse macaroniLarge smooth tubes, cut to about 1 1/4 inches - rigatoni or ziti cut down. Cook it short of tender, since it sits hot in the pie and absorbs sauce.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no serving count, but it is plainly a large party dish (eighteen mushroom heads go round the base), and the assembly has to be done at the last moment: everything is warm, glazed, and coated with Madeira sauce as it goes to the table, with more sauce passed separately.
SourcingFoie gras is restricted or banned in some jurisdictions; check before you shop. Where it is sold, buy a whole grade-A lobe and devein it before seasoning; the recipe does not mention the step.

A Little History

Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry is the grand French repertoire transplanted whole: a gros pâté chaud was the kind of centerpiece that came to the table intact, was opened, and was served from. The Alsatian label points to Strasbourg, the city most identified with fattened goose liver in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the invention of the Strasbourg foie gras pie is traditionally credited to a cook named Jean-Pierre Clause in the 1780s, though the attribution is repeated more often than it is documented, and force-feeding geese for enlarged livers is far older than either. What dates the recipe most clearly is its structure - hot pastry case, forcemeat lining, truffles cooked in Madeira, a garnish of macaroni and tongue - the layered assembly of a kitchen with a brigade to build it and a dining room willing to wait.