No. 2420

Aspic of Tongue a la Picquart

Aspic de Langue a la Picquart

To make this aspic use a mold having four rounded top uprights without the central tube; decorate the flat part of the mold between the uprights with rounded bits of hard-boiled egg-whites and the uprights each with three rosettes, also of the egg-white; coat with a thick layer of jelly and fill each upright with tongue cut in slices three-sixteenths of inch thick, well pared and cut round, then reconstructed as before; keep the thinnest end of the tongue at the bottom of the mold. Put a solid piece of tongue in the center of the mold to hold up the cupid. Set the mold on ice, fill it with jelly and when this is exceedingly cold unmold the aspic on a stand made in two pieces, one of which is nine inches and a half in diameter by one inch and a half high, the other eight and a quarter inches in diameter and one and a half inches high; both should be covered with montpelher butter (No. 582), besprinkled with chopped parsley. Garnish around the base of the aspic with chopped jelly and surround the upper tier with triangular croutons of clear jelly and the lower one with timbales of foies-gras made in molds (No. 3, Fig. 137); in the center of the aspic place a cupid supporting a vase filled with small glazed truffles.

← No. 2419 Aspic of Quails—Breasts The Cold Service No. 2421 Aspic of Veal with Macedoine Artichokes—Kern →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly recipe from Ranhofer's cold buffet chapter, and it assumes you already have clarified aspic jelly, a cooked tongue and a cupboard of cross-referenced components. The hinge is the jelly: it must be strong enough to hold vertical walls and clear enough to see the decoration through.

The jellyElsewhere in the book this is a clarified, gelatin-rich stock set with calf's foot and egg white. A modern equivalent is well-reduced veal or chicken stock, raft-clarified, reinforced to about 2 to 2.5 percent gelatin by weight so it unmolds cleanly and cuts into sharp croutons. A soft wine-jelly set will slump the moment it leaves the mold.
Lining the mold"Coat with a thick layer of jelly" means the chilled-mold method: pour in a little nearly-set jelly, roll and tip it over ice until a shell forms, pour off the excess. Set the egg-white decoration into that shell with a drop of liquid jelly as glue before the main filling goes in, or it will float.
Set the mold on iceIce was the period's standard means of fast chilling. A refrigerator does the same job more slowly; a freezer is best avoided, since ice crystals can cloud and weep the jelly. Each layer must be firm before the next is added or the tiers merge.
The tongueThis is cooked tongue, not raw: a beef or veal tongue simmered until tender and skinned before slicing. The recipe does not say whether it is fresh or brined. The 3/16-inch slices are pared into rounds and stacked back into tongue shape inside each upright, so a tongue wide enough to yield discs is needed.
Montpellier butterRecipe No. 582 in the same book: butter pounded with blanched herbs, anchovy, capers, hard-boiled yolk and a little oil, brilliant green. It is used here as a coating for the two stand tiers, whose material the recipe does not state, an edible stucco rather than a sauce.
Croutons and timbales"Croutons of clear jelly" are triangles cut from a sheet of set aspic, nothing to do with bread. The foie gras timbales are small molded portions from the book's own numbered mold series; any small dariole or silicone mold of similar size works for the same effect.
The cupidAn ornamental figure supported by the solid block of tongue set in the mold's center; the recipe does not say what it is made of. It is scaffolding for a table centerpiece and can be left out with no loss to the eating.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives none, and any serving figure is guesswork; a mold on a nine-and-a-half-inch base is one item among many on a cold buffet. Serve cold; once unmolded it holds a few hours in the refrigerator before the surface dulls.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its cold service chapter is essentially a catalogue of table architecture: aspics built on tiered stands, garnished with cut jelly and crowned with figures, meant to be looked at down the length of a banquet table before anyone ate. Dishes like this belong to the tradition of the pi tce mont ee that Car me codified early in the century, in which savory food was constructed like ornament. The name " a la Picquart" follows the book's habit of honoring patrons, colleagues and occasions, though Ranhofer rarely explains whom he means and no identification here is documented. What the recipe really shows is the labor behind such a service - clarified jelly, a pressed tongue, egg-white rosettes, foie gras timbales and a pastry-room ornament, all cross-referenced to other numbered recipes, because a brigade of cooks was making each part in parallel.