No. 2422

Aspics with Shrimps—Small

Petits Aspics aux Crevettes

Shell one hundred shrimp tails, having them cooked very red; keep them covered in a cool place. Make quart of good aspic jelly (No. 103). Incrust in ice ten timbale molds (No. 1, Fig. 137); decorate them with fanciful pieces of truffles or gherkins, covering the decoration with a thin layer of jelly, then pile on the shrimp tails symmetrically all around, sticking them in with the point of a larding needle after dipping them one at a time in half-set jelly. When the sides are covered, fill the hollow in the center with a bed of green asparagus; on top of the asparagus lay some jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), on this chopped mushrooms, and so on until the mold is full, finishing with mayonnaise. Keep the aspics on ice for three-quarters of an hour before unmolding and dress them on a bed of jelly on a dish to prevent them from slipping off.

← No. 2421 Aspic of Veal with Macedoine Artichokes—Kern The Cold Service No. 2423 Voliere Galantine of Pheasants a la Casimir →

For the Modern Kitchen

A layered cold entrée built inside chilled timbale molds. Everything depends on temperature control: the jelly must be at the point of setting when you use it as glue, and the mold must stay cold throughout.

The hinge: half-set jellyThe shrimp tails are stuck to the mold with jelly that has thickened to the consistency of raw egg white but has not gelled. Too warm and the tails slide down; too cold and the jelly will not bond to the previous layer. Keep a bowl of jelly over ice water and stir it, pulling it off the ice as soon as it begins to thicken.
"Incrust in ice"Bury the molds up to their rims in crushed ice (period kitchens sometimes packed molds in ice mixed with salt where a harder chill was wanted). A sheet pan of ice in the refrigerator, or a deep tray of ice on the counter, does the same job.
Aspic jelly (No. 103)A clarified veal or poultry stock set with gelatin. A modern substitute is well-flavored clarified fish or chicken stock with roughly 1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) powdered gelatin per 2 cups, and a little more than that if it must unmold cleanly and hold decoration in place.
Jellied mayonnaise (No. 613)Mayonnaise with melted aspic jelly whisked into it, so it sets rather than running. Add the jelly lukewarm and in a thin stream or the mayonnaise will break; use it immediately, while still spreadable.
Molds and quantityThe timbale molds here are small individual ones; a quart of jelly covers all ten with enough left over for the bed on the dish. One hundred shrimp tails across ten molds is ten per mold. Ramekins or dariole molds work.
"Cooked very red"Boiled briefly in salted water until just opaque and firmly pink, then cooled at once. Small shrimp need only two to three minutes; longer and they curl too tightly to sit flat against the mold wall.
ToolsA larding needle is only being used as a placement tool here. Fine tweezers or a bamboo skewer will set the tails and truffle cuts more precisely.
Chilling and unmoldingThree-quarters of an hour on ice is the minimum for the last layer to firm; an hour or two in the refrigerator is safer. Dip the mold briefly in warm water, wipe it, and turn out onto the sheet of set jelly, which stops the aspic sliding on the platter.
Yield and serviceTen individual aspics, one per person, as a cold entrée. Assemble the day of service and keep refrigerated until the moment it goes to the table — mayonnaise and cooked shellfish in a warm dining room do not hold.

A Little History

This comes from the cold-buffet chapters of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the record of thirty-odd years running the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and it shows what the cold service was for in a nineteenth-century restaurant of that class: not convenience but display. Aspic work of this kind — decoration set into the bottom of a chilled mold, ingredients built up in courses so that the finished shape reads as a striped or studded column when turned out — was the pastry-cook's discipline applied to savory food, and it depended on two things the modern kitchen takes for granted, plentiful ice and gelatinous stock made from bones and calf's feet rather than a packet. The truffles are not even fixed: the recipe offers gherkins as an alternative. The cross-references to numbered recipes are characteristic of the book, which assumes a brigade with the basic preparations already standing ready.