No. 2542

Small "pains" of Capon with Tarragon

Petits Pains de Chapon a l'Estragon

Select some timbale molds (No. 1, Fig. 137), imbed them in chopped ice, and decorate the bottoms and sides with cut-up gherkins and blanched tarragon leaves, being careful to dip these decorations in half-set jelly when using. Take the value of two or three gills of capon puree, and mix with it a few spoonfuls of veloute sauce (No. 415); put this into a small saucepan and dissolve gradually with a gill of good aspic jelly (No. 103) and a few spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar. Stir this preparation on ice to thicken, and use it to fill the empty molds. One hour later dip these timbales in warm water; unmold the timbales and dress them at once in a circle on a cold dish. Garnish the center with chopped jelly and around with jelly croutons.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A cold moulded mousse from Ranhofer's chapter of garnishes, built on three components the original assumes you already have standing by: capon purée, velouté and aspic. The hinge is gelatin strength — the aspic must be firm enough to set the purée but soft enough to unmould cleanly.

GillsA gill is half a cup. Two to three gills of capon puree is 1 to 1½ cups; the gill of aspic is another half cup, so the finished mixture runs two to three parts meat to one part jelly, plus the velouté.
CaponA castrated cockerel, fattier and more tender than a hen, and not something a supermarket carries. Poached breast and thigh meat from a 4–5 lb roasting chicken, pounded or processed smooth and sieved, gives the same result.
Timbale moldsSmall straight-sided dariole or timbale moulds of about 2 to 3 fl oz. Ranhofer's cross-reference to Fig. 137 is to his own plate of mould shapes; any small metal mould of that capacity works, and metal unmoulds far better than ceramic.
Half-set jelly for the décorThe gherkin and tarragon pieces are dipped in aspic that has begun to thicken to a syrup, then pressed onto the chilled mould so they stay put. If the jelly is still liquid the decoration slides; if it has set it will not adhere.
Blanching the tarragonA few seconds in boiling water and straight into ice water. This fixes the green and stops the leaves darkening inside the jelly over the hour they sit.
Stirring on iceThe mixture must be stirred over ice until it thickens to the consistency of lightly whipped cream before it goes into the moulds. Poured in while still fluid, the purée settles and the aspic separates into a clear layer.
UnmouldingThe dip in warm water should be brief, a few seconds at most. Longer and the surface decoration melts into the jelly it is set in.
Jelly croûtonsNot bread — these are firm aspic set in a shallow tray and cut into neat triangles or diamonds, the standard cold-buffet border of the period.
Yield and serviceRoughly two cups of finished mixture fills six to eight small moulds. They are a garnish for a cold table rather than a course, and should be kept refrigerated until the moment they are dressed.

A Little History

Pain here has nothing to do with bread: in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage a pain was a forcemeat or purée bound and moulded into a loaf or shape, served hot or, as here, cold in aspic. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full record of the restaurant's repertoire, and this recipe sits in a long run of cold garnishes intended for the buffet displays and pièces montées of a formal service à la russe. The technique — decorating a chilled mould with cut vegetables set in half-jelly, then filling it with a mousse stiffened by aspic — belongs to the standard cold-larder grammar of the Carême-to-Escoffier era, and the recipe is correspondingly terse, leaning on numbered cross-references to other preparations.