No. 243

Consomme a la Souveraine

A garnishing of timbales. Make a preparation with one pint of mushroom puree, two gills of espagnole sauce with essence of game (No. 414), ten egg-yolks, salt, red pepper, and nutmeg; fill some dome shaped molds with this, and poach them in a slack oven, placing the molds in a stewpan with boiling water reaching to half their height; when done, which means firm to the touch, unmold them, and put them into a vegetable dish with some consomme, also some turnips cut into triangles, half an inch by an eighth of an inch thick, blanched and cooked in consomme, squares of the red part of carrot cut the same thickness, blanched and cooked with consomme; some artichoke bottoms cut into quarter of an inch squares, and half inch round pieces of blanched lettuce leaves.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a garnish recipe more than a soup recipe: the consommé is assumed, and what Ranhofer is describing is a savoury mushroom custard cut with knife-work vegetables. The hinge is the custard — it is poached, not baked, and it will curdle if the water bath is allowed to boil.

Gills and quantitiesA gill is half a cup, so two gills of espagnole is one cup. With a pint of mushroom purée that gives about three cups of base to ten yolks — a firm, sliceable custard rather than a pouring one.
"Slack oven"A slack or cool oven is roughly 275-300F. Any hotter and the yolks set into a grainy, weeping custard; the water in the stewpan should stay just below a simmer the whole time.
Testing for done"Firm to the touch" is Ranhofer's only doneness test: the centre should no longer wobble as a unit. Timing depends on the size of the moulds, so check often, and let them settle briefly before unmoulding.
Espagnole and essence of gameEspagnole is the old brown mother sauce: brown roux, brown stock, tomato, mirepoix, long-reduced. The No. 414 cross-reference points to Ranhofer's own recipe; essence of game generally means a heavily reduced game stock. A well-reduced demi-glace stands in for both, though it will read less gamey.
Mushroom puréeNineteenth-century purée means mushrooms cooked down and passed through a sieve, thick and nearly dry. Sautéed mushrooms blitzed and then reduced in the pan until no liquid pools will do; wet purée gives a custard that will not set.
The mouldsDome-shaped timbale moulds; the recipe gives no size. Buttered ramekins, dariole moulds or a silicone half-sphere tray all work; grease them well, as the custard is dense and clings.
The vegetable garnishThe dimensions are not decoration for its own sake: the turnip triangles are half an inch by an eighth thick and the carrot squares are cut to the same thickness, so they cook evenly and sit level in the bowl; the artichoke bottoms are quarter-inch squares and the lettuce is cut in half-inch rounds. The recipe has the turnips and carrots blanched and then cooked in consomme, and the lettuce blanched.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its consomme chapter is less a set of soups than a catalogue of garnishes: dozens of numbered entries in which the clear broth is constant and only the things floating in it change. "A la souveraine" -- in the sovereign's manner -- belongs to the same nineteenth-century French naming habit as a la royale and a l'imperiale, flattering titles attached to garnishes rather than to any particular monarch. The royale, an unsweetened egg custard poached in a mould and cut up for consomme, is the same family of preparation; here it is enriched with mushroom puree, espagnole and game essence and served whole in dome form. The knife-work -- triangles, squares and rounds measured in eighths of an inch -- is the real point of the entry.