No. 2484

Foies-Gras in Cradle, to Be Cut in Slices

Foies-Gras en Berceau, pour etre Coupe en Tranches

Prepare one pound and a half of baking forcemeat (No. 64); let this forcemeat become quite cold, then pound and rub it through a sieve. Chop up two pounds of lean veal with a pound and a quarter of fresh fat pork, and pound this to a pulp also; season and lay it in a bowl to mix with three or four raw, chopped truffles, and add liver baking forcemeat. Butter cradle-shaped molds, and cover the insides with a thin layer of the forcemeat, leaving an empty space in the center; fill up this vacancy with large strips of raw foies-gras, season and intermingle them with forcemeat and cut-up raw truffles; cover this over with more of the forcemeat and with slices of fat pork. Lay the mold on a raised-edge baking sheet containing a little water, push it into a slack oven and bake for an hour and a quarter; when removed, cool under the pressure of a slight weight. These pies are useful for cutting up in slices.

← No. 2483 Foies-Gras in Border The Cold Service No. 2485a Galantine of Chicken →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a pâté de foie gras baked in a bain-marie and pressed cold — essentially a terrine, built for slicing onto a cold buffet. Ranhofer assumes you have his forcemeat No. 64 already at hand and a mold most kitchens no longer own.

The hinge: press it while it coolsThe weight applied as the pâté cools is what closes the crumb and makes clean slices possible. Cool it under a board or a flat pan with a couple of pounds on top, then refrigerate a full day before cutting; sliced warm it will crumble.
"Slack oven"Around 300F. With the mold sitting in water on the sheet pan, this is a gentle bain-marie bake, not a roast. An hour and a quarter is about right for a mold of this size, but go by internal temperature.
Internal temperatureThe mixture is raw veal and raw pork. Take it to 160F at the center on an instant-read thermometer; a pâté this dense at the size described will read well below that if pulled early.
The cradle moldEn berceau means cradle-shaped: a long, deep mold with a rounded bottom. Note that Ranhofer calls for molds in the plural, so the mixture is meant to be divided. A terrine or loaf pan lined with plastic wrap and then with barding fat gives the same result in a rectangular slice; size the pans to the full volume of the mixture, which runs to nearly five pounds before the foie gras is added.
Baking forcemeat No. 64Ranhofer's liver-based baking forcemeat, or farce à gratin; this recipe refers back to it as 'liver baking forcemeat'. Consult No. 64 for its exact composition. It is a separate operation, to be made and chilled before you begin here — the recipe says to let it become quite cold, then pound and sieve it. A modern equivalent is a liver gratin forcemeat, food-processed rather than pounded and sieved.
Fat porkFresh unsmoked fatback, not salt pork or bacon. It is doing two jobs: fat in the farce, and the sheets that cover the top to keep the surface from drying. Ask a butcher; supermarket "salt pork" will need long soaking and still carries cure flavor.
TrufflesThree or four raw truffles is a quantity almost no modern cook will match. Preserved black truffle, chopped fine, folded in at the end works; truffle oil does not, and will taste synthetic against the liver.
Seasoning a raw pâtéRanhofer says only "season." Figure roughly 1.5% salt by weight of the total mixture, plus white pepper and a little brandy or Madeira. Fry a teaspoon of the mixture and taste before you fill the mold.
YieldThe named meats alone come to nearly five pounds before the unquantified foie gras and truffles, so expect a good deal more than that: dozens of buffet slices. Keep it well wrapped under refrigeration and use it within a few days; it slices best thoroughly chilled.
SourcingFoie gras production and sale is restricted or banned in a number of jurisdictions. Check locally before shopping; duck or chicken liver makes a different but workable pâté in the same mold.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for most of three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole repertoire — some 3,500 numbered items, cross-referenced like an engineering manual, which is why this recipe sends you off to No. 64 for its forcemeat. The Cold Service section is the buffet chapter, and its logic is display: galantines, borders, aspics and pâtés built to be sliced and arranged on a platter in front of guests, work that a nineteenth-century restaurant brigade did the day before service. Berceau is simply French for cradle, describing the deep rounded mold rather than anything about the filling; the same forcemeat appears elsewhere in Ranhofer in borders, in crusts, and in plain terrines. Foie gras itself reached American kitchens as an imported luxury, largely from Strasbourg and the southwest of France, and its appearance uncooked and in "large strips" here — rather than as a bought tinned block — marks this as a recipe for a kitchen with a serious purveyor and no concern about cost.