No. 2403

Vol-au-Vent a la Delmontes—Small

Petits Vol-au-vent a la Delmontes

These small vol-au-vent are prepared the same as explained in No. 180. Prepare also a brown espagnole sauce (No. 414) with Marsala wine, into which mix equal parts of cooked unsmoked beef tongue, cut in balls three-eights of an inch in diameter with a vegetable spoon, foies-gras quenelles made with foies-gras forcemeat (No. 78) of the same size, or else replace these by marrow quenelles (No. 353) of the same diameter, small mushrooms and the cutaneous part of a calf's head cut the same size; properly heat the whole, and fill the small vol-au-vent crusts with it; on each one place a round quarter-inch in diameter slice of calf's brains breaded and fried, over this a stuffed Spanish olive (No. 695), and the whole surmounted by a ball of truffle glazed over with meat glaze.

← No. 2402 Vol-au-Vent of Oysters Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2404 Vol-au-Vent a la Lucini—Small →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is an assembly recipe: Ranhofer assumes you already have puff-paste cases, a brown sauce and two or three forcemeats on hand from elsewhere in the book. Read it as a garnish list rather than a set of instructions, and the work becomes manageable.

The hinge: fill at the last momentEverything here is cooked before it meets the pastry. The ragout should be hot and thick enough to hold, and the cases warm and dry, with filling going in as they leave the kitchen. Sauced filling standing in baked puff paste collapses it within minutes.
Small vol-au-ventThe recipe simply refers back to No. 180 for the cases and gives no dimension for them; make them small enough to be an individual portion. Commercial frozen puff pastry works; bake at 400F until fully risen and coloured, then lift out the soft centre and dry the shells a few minutes in a 300F oven.
Espagnole with MarsalaNo. 414 is the classic brown sauce built on brown roux and veal stock, long simmered and reduced. A good reduced demi-glace or a well-reduced brown veal stock lightly thickened stands in for it. Add the Marsala early enough to cook off its rawness — a splash reduced into the sauce, not stirred in at the end.
The three-eighths-inch ruleThe tongue is balled with a vegetable spoon (a small melon baller) at three-eighths of an inch, and the quenelles and the calf's-head skin are cut to match; the mushrooms are simply chosen small. Uniformity of size is the point of the garnish.
Unsmoked beef tongueFresh, not corned or smoked, tongue: simmer until tender, peel while warm, chill, then ball it. Tongue is often sold cured, which will throw the seasoning off, so ask specifically.
Foie gras or marrow quenellesThe book offers marrow quenelles (No. 353) as an outright substitute for the foie-gras ones. Whichever forcemeat you use, poach the quenelles in gently simmering stock that never boils, or the forcemeat breaks up.
Calf's head"The cutaneous part" is the gelatinous skin from a boiled calf's head, the same material used for tête de veau. Rarely sold now; simmered pork skin or a piece of well-cooked veal cheek gives a similar sticky texture.
Calf's brainsBovine brain and skull from older cattle are classified as specified risk material and cannot be sold for food in the UK or EU because of BSE, with comparable age-based restrictions in the US; availability of calf's brains varies by jurisdiction and you should check local rules. Prions are not destroyed by frying. Many cooks will prefer to leave this garnish out; a small breaded and fried medallion of sweetbread or a crouton of fried bread keeps the look of the dish.
Truffle and glazeThe finishing ball is a scoop of black truffle brushed with meat glaze — stock reduced to a syrup that sets tacky. A spoonful of reduced demi-glace serves. Given truffle prices, a single small ball per pastry is genuinely all the recipe asks.
Yield and serviceThe original gives no count. Scale the garnish to the number of cases you have baked and serve them as an entrée course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how his kitchen worked: a vast numbered system of stocks, forcemeats and pastes from which a garnish could be assembled on demand. The odd title "a la Delmontes" is unexplained; whether it is a garbling of the restaurant's name or something else is not established. Vol-au-vent — literally "flight in the wind" — is often associated with Antonin Carême's Paris kitchens in the early nineteenth century, though the term appears in French cookery before his career, and by Ranhofer's day the puff-paste case with a ragout was a fixed item of the grand restaurant repertoire, its identity determined entirely by what went inside. The filling here is a good index of nineteenth-century luxury: tongue, foie gras, marrow, truffle, and the offal cuts from a calf's head that a modern menu quietly dropped and, in the case of brains, food law later restricted.