No. 2393

Turban of Fillets of Flukes or Smelts-Streaked

Turban de Filets de Carrelets ou d'Eperlans, Bigarres

Raise the four fillets, peel off the skin, cut them lengthwise in two, then into slices, having them six inches long by one wide; make bias incisions on half the thickness, and set into every one a thin slice of truffle. With a fish quenelle forcemeat (No. 90) make a crown-shaped border, rounded on the top, using mold (Fig. 139); lay on it the streaked slices slanting in such a way as to cover the surfaces so that the truffles are seen on top; lay over strips of buttered paper, and cook this turban in a slack oven; drain off the butter and fill up the empty space with mushrooms, truffles and oyster kernels, cover with an allemande sauce (No. 407) reduced with cream and well buttered, and lay a garnishing of fried milts around the turban.

← No. 2392 Tourte of Fillets of Soles a la Financiere Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2394 Turban of Lobsters Garnished with Shells →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's turban is a ring mold lined with fish forcemeat and shingled with truffle-inlaid fillets, baked gently and filled at the last minute. Nearly everything in it is doable now, but several of the ingredients and the oven instruction need translating.

Flukes are flounder"Fluke" is summer flounder; any small flatfish yielding four fillets works, and smelts are the alternative given. Skinned flatfish fillets are thin, so the six-by-one-inch slices come out naturally from a halved fillet.
Slack oven means 300-325FSlack oven means roughly 300-325F -- the book gives no numbers, but a slack or cool oven is conventionally taken as around 300F. The point is to set the forcemeat without letting it boil out its butter or curl the fillets; the fish is done at about 145F at the center of the forcemeat.
The hinge is the forcemeatA crown of quenelle forcemeat only holds its shape if the panada and cream are cold and the mixture is beaten over ice. Test a spoonful in barely simmering water first: if it breaks up, the turban will collapse when unmolded.
Mold (Fig. 139)A ring mold, buttered, of the kind that gives the crown shape the recipe asks for. A 6-8 cup savarin or angel-food ring pan does the same job; the empty center is what the garnish fills.
MiltsMilt is the soft roe, the male fish's sperm sac, poached briefly then floured and fried. Sold as shirako or soft roe at Japanese and some Italian fishmongers; if unavailable, fried oysters or small quenelles will stand in.
Oyster kernelsThe plump body of a shucked oyster, trimmed of beard and lightly poached. Two minutes in their own liquor is all they need; held longer they tighten to rubber and go grainy in the sauce.
Allemande sauceA velouté finished with egg yolks and lemon, here reduced with cream and beaten with butter off the heat. Once the yolks are in, keep it below a simmer or it will curdle.
TrufflesThe inlay is decorative as much as anything. Fresh black truffle is a serious expense; preserved truffle peelings laid in the incisions give the same striping, which is what bigarr", streaked, refers to.
YieldFour fillets and a ring mold of forcemeat make one course for a small party; the recipe gives no number. It is an entrée in the old sense, a course served between the fish and the roast. Unmold onto a warm platter and fill the center only at the moment of serving.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is a fair sample of what the restaurant's kitchen brigade could be asked to do for a single course. Bigarr" means variegated or two-toned, and describes the striping produced by setting dark truffle into pale fish; the same word is used of the bigarreau cherry. The turban was a standing form of the period, a ring of forcemeat and fillets named for the shape it takes when turned out of the mold, and it belongs to the era when a dish's architecture was as much the point as its flavor. The garnish of fried milts is a reminder of how little of a fish was thrown away in a nineteenth-century professional kitchen: soft roe was a recognized delicacy in France and Britain, and largely dropped out of American cooking only in the twentieth century.