No. 2415

Aspic of Oysters

Aspic d'Huitres

Blanch some oysters, drain, wipe and cool; coat them over with a liberal layer of remoulade sauce (No. 628), to which liquid jelly has been added. Decorate a cylindrical mold (Fig. 150) with fanciful cuts of truffles, egg-white, gherkin and the red part of lobster, dipping each piece in half-set jelly and fastening them on to the bottom and sides of the mold; pour in a layer of jelly, having it half an inch thick, and on it dress the oysters in a circle, one overlapping the other; pour in more jelly to cover these another half inch and continue until the mold be full, then leave for several hours to become very cold; unmold and garnish around with chopped jelly and croutons.

← No. 2414 Aspic of Lobster The Cold Service No. 2416 Aspic of Partridge—Minion Fillets →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer assumes a kitchen with a stockpot of clarified aspic jelly always at hand, so the recipe never tells you how much jelly to make or how firm it should be. That, and the temperature of the jelly at each stage, is the whole job.

The hinge: jelly temperatureEverything depends on working with jelly at two different states. The jelly used to fasten the decorations should be syrupy and half-set, thick enough to grip; the jelly poured in layers should be liquid but barely cool, or it will melt what is already set. Chill each layer until firm before adding the next, or the oysters float and the pattern collapses.
How much jelly, and how strongRanhofer gives no mold size or quantity. For a mold of roughly 4 cups you will need enough jelly to fill the spaces between the oysters in half-inch layers — perhaps 2 to 3 cups. A strong, clear fish or chicken aspic — something on the order of 1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) of powdered gelatin per 1 1/2 cups of stock — should unmold cleanly without being rubbery; much weaker and the layers will not hold a slice.
Blanching the oystersRanhofer says only "blanch," which in this period generally meant a brief poach in their own liquor just until the edges ruffle. Because the finished dish is never heated again, cook them through to 145F and hold them there briefly rather than merely warming them. Drain and dry them well; surface moisture keeps the coating sauce from clinging.
Remoulade No. 628Ranhofer's remoulade is a mayonnaise base, mounted with raw yolks. In a dish that sits chilled for hours and is served cold, use pasteurized eggs or a commercial mayonnaise as the base. Thinning it with liquid jelly, as directed, is what lets it set on the oysters instead of sliding off.
The decorationsTruffle is optional rather than essential; blanched leek greens, black olive and thin rounds of radish or carrot cut with aspic cutters give the same graphic effect. "The red part of lobster" is generally taken to mean the red-tinted shell side of the cooked tail meat (some cooks used the coral as well), used purely for color.
Chopped jelly and croutonsSet a portion of the same aspic in a shallow pan: chop some roughly with a wet knife for a glittering border and cut the rest into neat triangles or diamonds. In period aspic service these croutons are usually jelly rather than bread, though Ranhofer does not say.
UnmoldingDip the mold in warm water for five to eight seconds only, run a thin knife around the rim, and invert onto a chilled platter.
YieldAs a first course this will serve six or so, depending on the mold. The recipe's "several hours to become very cold" is a minimum; making it the day before is easier.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the cold service section is where the kitchen's ambition is most visible: jellied constructions built in decorated molds, lined up in the book as a numbered series — lobster, oysters, partridge — each a variation on the same technique. Aspic in this period was a genuine luxury, since clear jelly meant long-simmered stock from veal knuckles or calf's feet, clarified with egg white and often reinforced with isinglass, all of it done by hand. Oysters justified the effort in nineteenth-century New York, where they were abundant and cheap enough to eat daily yet still elegant enough for Delmonico's dining room; setting them in jelly with a truffle-and-lobster mosaic was a way of turning a common shellfish into something that read as expensive across a room. Powdered gelatin, which arrived commercially in the same decades, eventually made dishes like this domestic rather than professional — and then, by mid-century association with molded salads, unfashionable.