No. 2538

Mousseline of Pheasants, Princess

Mousseline de Faisans, Princesse

This cold entree is dressed on a carved rice croustade slightly hollowed out on top to form an outspreading ledge. Incrust in chopped ice a plain pyramidical flat-top mold. Take the meat of two breasts of cooked pheasants and half a cooked foies-gras; with these make a preparation the same as for a chaudfroid of fillets of pheasants (No. 2456); before thickening it on ice put a quarter of this into a saucepan and incorporate in it two spoonfuls of black pounded truffles; thicken the two preparations separately on ice. Moisten the interior of the mold with a brush dipped in jelly, fill it to a third of its height with the white mixture, and when this is cold pour in a layer of the black one inch deep, and on this another of the white, of the same thickness as the first, then another one of black, the same as before, and finish filling with the white; cover with a buttered white paper and leave to cool for two hours. Lastly dip the mold in hot water and turn it over to unmold on the croustade; surround the base with a row of sticky chopped jelly (No. 2526) and on this lay a chain of small, crimped paper cases, each one filled with a round of truffle. On top of the mousseline fasten a hatelet garnished with mushrooms of graduated sizes, and surround this with chopped jelly; lay around some cases the same as the lower ones, only somewhat smaller, also filled with truffles.

← No. 2537 Mousseline of Lobster Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2539 Mousseline of Pullet →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold, layered game mousse from the Delmonico's kitchen, built to be looked at as much as eaten. Ranhofer assumes you already have his chaudfroid preparation, his aspic and his rice croustade on hand, so most of the work is in the cross-references rather than the paragraph itself.

The base preparationNo. 2456 is Ranhofer's chaudfroid of fillets of pheasant, and the mousseline is made the same way: the cooked pheasant and foie gras pounded, sieved, seasoned and bound with jelly. Nothing is cooked again; the set comes from the gelatin in the jelly, so the aspic must be strong enough to stand unmolded.
"Thicken on ice"This is the hinge. Both mixtures are stirred over ice only until they thicken to the point of holding a soft ribbon. Too loose and the black and white layers bleed into each other; too far and the mixture sets in the bowl and will not level in the mold.
Layering disciplineEach stratum must be fully set and cold before the next is poured, or the truffled layer will marble into the pale one. Return the mold to the ice between additions, and pour the next layer cool rather than warm.
"Incrust in chopped ice"Bury the mold to its rim in crushed ice in a deep pan or bowl. A freezer will do the same job, though ice keeps the mold at an even temperature without freezing the cream, which turns grainy if it does.
Vessels and measuresA "pyramidical flat-top mold" is a truncated pyramid; any straight-sided mold with a flat bottom gives the same clean bands. Ranhofer does not define his "two spoonfuls" of pounded truffle here, and the quantity is genuinely elastic — judge by color, enough to read as black against the pale mixture.
IngredientsTwo pheasant breasts give roughly three-quarters of a pound to a pound of cooked meat; poached or roasted guinea fowl or chicken breast substitutes without changing the method, though the flavor flattens. "Half a cooked foies-gras" means half a whole cooked liver, and the weight varies a good deal; a good mousse de foie gras works. Preserved truffle peelings in place of whole truffle will read black but taste of very little.
UnmoldingDip for a few seconds only. A cream-and-aspic mousse melts fast at the surface, and ten seconds too long leaves the edges slumped and the layer lines blurred.
The dressingThe rice croustade is a decorative pedestal of cooked, pressed rice, carved and hollowed — a cold platter or a shallow ring of set aspic serves the same purpose today. The "hatelet" is an ornamental silver skewer; a plain steel skewer of graduated turned mushrooms is the modern equivalent, and it is decoration only, meant to be lifted off before carving.
Timing and yieldTwo hours is the minimum the recipe allows; longer chilling sets the layers more firmly and cuts cleaner. Ranhofer gives no mold size, so the yield depends on the mold chosen; cut so each portion shows the banding, with the truffle-filled paper cases as garnish.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to its most theatrical department: cold dishes conceived as architecture, mounted on carved socles of rice, bread or tallow and finished with hatelets, chopped jelly and crimped paper cases. Mousselines of this kind — pounded meat or fish, sieved, bound with aspic and lightened with cream — sit at the point where the heavy nineteenth-century pain and galantine gave way to the lighter mousses codified about a decade later by Escoffier. Dish names like Princesse were not fixed formulas so much as house shorthand for a particular arrangement of garnish, and Ranhofer uses dozens of them; the same mousseline appears in his book as lobster and as pullet a page either side. The pheasant and foie gras together mark it as a banquet piece for a season when wild game came into the kitchen in quantity, and its structure of alternating white and truffle-black bands is display cookery of the most deliberate kind.