No. 2382

Timbale of Chicken, Parisian Style-Large

Grosse Timbale de Poulet a la Parisienne

Butter a cold oval timbale mold, decorate with fanciful cuts of truffles and cover this decoration with a layer of consistent chicken quenelle forcemeat, having it half an inch deep at the base and diminishing the thickness toward the top. Fill the inside of the timbale with a well-pared boneless chicken fricassee (No. 1861), into which mix a Toulouse garnishing (No. 766), having both thoroughly cold. Cover the top with a layer of forcemeat and place the mold in a saucepan containing boiling water, withdraw it to one side at the first boil and finish cooking the timbale in a slack oven. Let it rest for fifteen minutes after removal, then unmold and pour around a little veloute sauce (No. 415) with essence of truffles (No. 396); serve more of this sauce separately.

← No. 2381 Timbale a la Nantaise Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2383 Timbale for Epicures →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a larder already stocked, so this entry is really an assembly diagram: three sub-recipes lifted from elsewhere in the book and lined into a mold. The points below fill in what he assumed his cooks knew.

The hinge: everything must be coldThe forcemeat lining will slump and the filling will loosen the walls if either goes in warm. Chill the mold, the quenelle mixture and the fricassee thoroughly, and work quickly so the butter in the forcemeat never softens.
"Slack oven"A low oven; the book gives no figures, but the term is conventionally read as somewhere around 275-300F. The timbale is a bound farce, not a roast, and too hot an oven will tighten the forcemeat so it weeps butter and cracks. Timing depends entirely on the size of the mold -- allow upwards of an hour for a large oval one -- and cook until the center reaches a safe temperature for poultry, 165F.
The water bathStarting the mold in boiling water on the stovetop sets the outer shell so it holds its decoration; the oven then finishes it gently. Keep the water at least halfway up the mold and top it up with boiling, not cold, water.
Toulouse garnishThe classic garniture Toulouse runs to a ragout of cockscombs and cock's kidneys, sweetbreads, small quenelles, mushrooms and truffles; Ranhofer's No. 766 gives his own version. Cockscombs are hard to come by outside specialist butchers; sweetbreads, button mushrooms, quenelles and a little truffle give much the same effect.
Chicken quenelle forcemeatRaw breast pounded with panada and butter, or in a modern kitchen processed cold with cream. It must be stiff enough to spread and stay put on a vertical wall -- test a spoonful poached in simmering water before you line the mold.
Fricassee, "well-pared"Meaning boneless, skinless and cut to even pieces small enough to pack without air pockets. Drain it well; excess sauce inside the timbale will steam the lining apart.
Truffle decorationThe fanciful cuts are stamped from peeled black truffle and pressed into the buttered mold so they appear on the finished surface. Truffle peelings sold in jars work; the pattern reads best with simple shapes.
The fifteen-minute restNot optional. It lets the forcemeat firm so the timbale unmolds whole. Loosen the edge, invert onto a warm platter, and sauce around rather than over so the decoration shows.
YieldNo yield or mold size is given; a large oval mold of this type would serve a table of eight or so as an entr"e course. Velout" (No. 415) is a white sauce built on white stock; essence of truffles (No. 396) is a truffle-flavored reduction -- see Ranhofer's own numbers for both.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for much of the last third of the nineteenth century, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole repertoire, cross-referenced by number like a technical manual. The timbale takes its name from the drum-shaped vessel it is cooked in -- timbale is generally traced through French to an Arabic word for a kettledrum -- and by Ranhofer's day the term covered any farce-lined mold baked in a water bath and turned out whole. Dishes like this one existed to be carried into the dining room intact and admired for the truffle pattern, which survived only if the cook had chilled every component properly. It belongs to the era of the multi-course service \em>enttr"e was a made dish served between fish and roast rather than the main event.