No. 2514

Hard-Boiled Eggs Stuffed with Salpicon

Œufs Durs Farcis au Salpicon

Incorporate some rather firm jelly into a little puree of foiesgras, spread it out on a baking sheet to half an inch in thickness and leave to cool. With a pastry cutter remove from it some rounds two inches in diameter, and from these remove the center with an inch and a quarter pastry cutter. Place these rings in small shallow crimped paper cases. Cut some hard-boiled eggs in two through the center of their height, empty the interior of each half and refill them to a point with a half-inch salpicon of chicken, truffles, tongue and mushrooms, combined with a little jellied mayonnaise (No. 613); strew chopped parsley over. Lay these eggs on the rings and cover lightly with jelly.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A cold buffet garnish from Ranhofer's Delmonico repertoire: stuffed egg halves set on foie gras rings, glazed with aspic. Nothing here is difficult, but almost every component is a cross-reference to another page of the book, so the work is in the assembly, not the cooking.

SalpiconNot an ingredient but a cut: cooked items diced small and bound with a sauce. Ranhofer specifies half-inch dice of chicken, truffle, tongue and mushroom, which is coarse by modern eye; a quarter-inch dice sits better in half an egg white.
"Jelly" means aspicHere jelly is clarified savoury aspic, not a sweet gelatin dessert (the book uses the word for both, depending on the section). Modern equivalent is a well-reduced, clarified stock set with gelatin — roughly 1 teaspoon powdered gelatin per cup, adjusted firmer for the foie gras mixture since it must hold a cut edge.
Jellied mayonnaise (No. 613)This is mayonnaise collée: mayonnaise with melted aspic whisked in, used cold so it sets. It stiffens fast, so bind the salpicon just before filling the eggs and keep the bowl off ice while you work.
The hinge: temperature controlEverything must be cold and set at each stage. Warm foie gras purée will not cut cleanly, warm aspic will slump off the eggs, and a mayonnaise-bound salpicon left at room temperature is the weak point of the whole dish. Chill between every step and hold the finished pieces refrigerated until service.
TongueCooked tongue, most likely cured beef tongue, red and firm; it supplied colour as much as flavour and was a common item in a kitchen of this kind. Delicatessen tongue works; failing that, a lean cured ham gives a similar visual contrast, though the flavour is different.
Foie gras puréeRanhofer means a smooth pâté or mousse of foie gras pressed through a sieve. A good duck liver mousse can stand in. Half an inch is the depth given, and it is deliberate: the ring must be thick enough to seat the egg without collapsing.
Paper cases"Small shallow crimped paper cases" are fluted paper cups. Foil or stiff paper cases of about 2 inches across serve the same purpose.
Glazing"Cover lightly with jelly" means brushing or spooning aspic that has cooled to the consistency of raw egg white over the assembled egg. Too warm and it runs off, too cool and it sets in lumps; two thin coats set in the refrigerator beat one thick one.
YieldNo quantity is given, as with most garnishes in this book. Figure one half-egg per person as a single buffet item; a dozen eggs gives twenty-four pieces, and cutting twenty-four 2-inch rounds needs a sheet of foie gras purée of roughly 8 by 12 inches, plus the trimmings.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working system set down in print: some 3,500 numbered entries that refer to one another rather than repeat themselves. This entry sits in a long run of egg garnishes, each a variation on the same idea, in the manner of the cold buffet of the period. Aspic did the structural work that plating and photography do now, holding food glossy and immobile through a long service in a warm dining room. The debt to Antonin Car u00eame's earlier cuisine froide is often said to be considerable, and the vocabulary u2014 salpicon, coll u00e9e, the numbered cross-reference u2014 is the professional French Ranhofer had trained in before he came to New York.