No. 2504

Garnishing of Eggs, Juliette

Garniture d'Oeufs Juliette

Fry thin slices of ham in butter without coloring; drain off the fat and place the ham under a weight; detach the glaze from the pan with a little Madeira wine, a small quantity of half-glaze (No.400), and as much jelly (No. 103); reduce well. Pare the ham into half-hearts and cover them entirely with the sauce. Decorate a timbale mold (No. 1, Fig. 137) with pistachios and truffles; coat the decoration with a thick layer of the sauce and place in the center some small soft eggs just cooked enough to allow to peel; on these lay the ham, shredded fine, and the remainder of the sauce; when perfectly cold fill up with jelly, and as this becomes thoroughly cold invert the whole on a dish, having a layer of jelly on its bottom; surround with chopped jelly and croutons (No.2442).

← No. 2503 Garnishing of Eggs a la Jardiniere Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2505 Garnishing of Eggs a la Justine →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a component from Ranhofer's cold-buffet chapter: a small aspic-lined timbale of soft eggs and ham, meant to sit around a larger cold piece. It depends on three cross-referenced preparations and on working aspic at exactly the right temperature.

The hinge: aspic temperatureEverything here fails or succeeds on the jelly being at the syrupy stage — cool enough to cling and set within a minute, still fluid enough to run into the decoration without dislodging it. Set the mold in ice water and work in thin layers, letting each firm before the next.
The cross-referencesNo. 400 is half-glaze (demi-glace), a reduced brown sauce, as the recipe itself glosses it; No. 103 is the book's clarified jelly (aspic). Either can be replaced by a good reduced brown sauce and a firm, well-clarified stock set with gelatin, but both must be strong enough to hold once cold. No. 2442 is the book's crouton preparation for cold dishes, most likely set jelly cut into neat shapes.
Madeira and the reductionDeglazing the ham pan with Madeira, then reducing it with the half-glaze and jelly, gives a sauce that sets to a coating consistency. Reduce until a spoonful chills firm on a cold plate; if it stays loose, the ham will not hold its coat.
Pressing the hamFrying thin ham without color and then weighting it flattens and firms the slices so they can be pared into clean half-hearts. Chill under the weight for at least an hour; warm ham tears when cut to shape.
"Small soft eggs just cooked enough to allow to peel"These are soft-boiled eggs, roughly five minutes for small ones, cooled and shelled with the yolk still soft. Expect a few casualties in peeling.
Eggs and holding timeThe yolks never reach a pasteurizing temperature, and a cold buffet piece like this would have stood out for some time before it was eaten. Build it in the refrigerator, keep it there until service, and use pasteurized-in-shell eggs if serving anyone vulnerable.
Decorating the moldBlanched pistachios and truffle slices are laid in a thin film of set jelly in the bottom of the mold, face down, since the whole thing is inverted at the end. Ranhofer specifies a particular small timbale mold but gives no capacity; choose one that will just hold the eggs, and scale by the number of guests.
UnmoldingDip the mold in warm water for three or four seconds only, then invert onto the jelly-coated dish. Any longer and the decoration melts into a smear.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the cooking of Delmonico's in New York, and its chapter of cold garnishes is among the more detailed accounts in English of nineteenth-century cuisine froide — the mirror-glazed, truffle-inlaid aspic work that dressed a buffet table before refrigeration made cold food routine. Garnitures like this one were not served alone but ranged around a cold ham, galantine or salmon, and Ranhofer numbers dozens of them, many carrying women's given names in near-alphabetical runs: Juliette, Justine. The names are conventional rather than commemorative, a way of labeling small variations on a technique, and no particular Juliette is known to lie behind this one. What the recipe really documents is the labor available in a large brigade: three separate sub-preparations, a decorated mold, and several hours of chilling for something that amounted to a border on a platter.