No. 2417

Aspic of Pheasant

Aspic de Faisan

Clean two young pheasants; truss them as for an entree (No. 178), and braise white; cool off, remove the breasts (fillets) and pare into the shape of escalops one inch in diameter by three-six-teenths of an inch in thickness; cover each one with foies-gras. Pound the remainder of the meats and rub through a sieve; put the pulp in a vessel, and add to it a pint of half-glaze sauce (No. 413) prepared with truffle essence (No. 395), and a pint of strong jelly (No. 103); let this get very cold, and with it thickly cover the escalops; leave to cool on ice. Besides this make a puree with one partridge, and dilute it with white chaudfroid (No. 596); season highly, rub through a sieve, and mix in as much white jelly (No. 103) as chaudfroid. Coat a cylindrical fancy mold (No. 150) with white jelly, and incrust it very firmly in ice. On the bottom of this mold lay a bed of jelly three-quarters of an inch in thickness; on it arrange some slices of truffles one overlaying the other, each slice to be an inch in diameter and an eighth of an inch thick; on top of these place the escalops; pour on a layer of the white chaudfroid half an inch thick, and on this a row of escalops overlapping each other; cover these with more white jelly; now pour in a layer of chaudfroid, and continue the process until the mold be full; leave till very cold, then invert it on a small socle, either of stearin or carved rice (see No. 10).

← No. 2416 Aspic of Partridge—Minion Fillets The Cold Service No. 2418 Aspic of Pullet a la Cussy →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote this for a brigade with a larder full of stock, jelly and half-glaze already made; read the cross-references as shopping list rather than as footnotes. The whole thing is an exercise in temperature control, and the mold set in ice is the hinge.

Braise white"Braise white" means no browning at any stage: no colour on the birds, no colour on the braising vegetables, and a pale stock. Any fond will show through the chaudfroid as grey streaks.
The escalopsOne inch across by three-sixteenths thick is a coin roughly the diameter of a US quarter and about 5 mm thick. Pheasant breast is small; two young birds give perhaps a dozen or sixteen usable rounds, so cut them with a plain round cutter and keep the trim for the pounded pulp.
Half-glaze and truffle essenceHalf-glaze (demi-glace) here is a reduced brown sauce, not a jarred glaze; truffle essence is the strained liquor from cooking truffles, and canned truffle juice is the practical substitute. Together with a pint of jelly they make a coating that sets firm on the escalops.
ChaudfroidWhite chaudfroid is a velouté-based sauce enriched with cream and set with aspic jelly. It has to be used at the point where it coats a cold spoon without running; once it begins to set it can no longer be poured in an even layer.
Jelly strengthThe "strong jelly" of the period was clarified stock, its body coming from long-cooked calves' feet and veal bones, stiff enough to unmold as a self-supporting cylinder. Modern stocks are usually weaker; test a spoonful on a cold plate before committing, since a soft jelly will slump the moment it leaves the mold.
Working on ice"Incrust it very firmly in ice" means packing the mold into a bed of ice so each layer sets before the next is poured. Skipping this gives you a marbled mess instead of the intended strata. Each layer needs to be fully set, not merely cool.
The socleA stearin socle is a carved pedestal of hard fat, purely architectural and not eaten; the carved-rice alternative is likewise a display base. Neither is worth reproducing at home. A chilled platter serves the same purpose.
Keep it coldThis is a cooked dish handled cold for a long time, which is where the risk sits. Do the layering in short sessions with the components refrigerated between them, and return the finished aspic to the refrigerator until service.
YieldThe mold size is not specified, so the number of slices will depend on the mold used. The partridge purée and both jellies are made in quantities well in excess of what one mold needs.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York across some three decades, in two spells between the 1860s and the 1890s, and The Epicurean (1894) reads largely as the house's working archive, which is why nearly every step points to another numbered entry elsewhere in the volume. Aspics of this kind belong to the cold buffet of the late nineteenth century, when a restaurant's reputation rested partly on the garde-manger's ability to build layered, sliceable set pieces that could stand on a sideboard for hours. Pheasant, partridge, truffles and foie gras together mark this as a cold-weather luxury dish: game birds were seasonal and often wild-shot, and the pairing of game with truffle essence and a white chaudfroid is straight out of the French repertoire Ranhofer trained in before emigrating. The stearin socle is characteristic of the period's taste, an inedible carved pedestal serving to raise the food for a room of diners who expected display to be part of what they had paid for.