No. 2562

Goose Liver Pie

Pate de Foies-Gras

This cold pie, as shown in Fig. 518, is intended for very large suppers. Make a preparation the same as terrine of foies-gras, cook it in a long square-shaped tin mold and let get cold under a weight; keep it for five or six hours on ice. Butter a tastefully decorated cold pie mold, lay it on a baking sheet covered with strong buttered paper, and line it with foundation paste (No. 135) made with egg-yolks; cover the bottom and sides with buttered paper, and fill it up with common flour, then cover with another buttered paper, and close the opening on top with a flat of the same paste, fastening the two edges together; cut the top straight and pinch it prettily, then egg it over. Cook this paste for one hour and a quarter in a slack oven, so that it acquires a fine color, and as soon as it is removed open it by cutting the cover on a level with the edges and lift it off and empty out the contents; dry the inside for a few moments at a warm heater. When the crust is thoroughly cold unfasten the hinges of the mold so as to remove it, then glaze over the inside with a brush; cover the bottom with a layer of chopped jelly, and on this dress the terrine preparation cut in slices, having them in long squares of equal size and thickness; put the poorest ones at the bottom, and when this garnishing has reached nearly to the top finish filling with the prettiest slices, dressing them in a compact circle, and filling the inside of this with fine chopped jelly. Fasten the pie on a cold dish, surround the base with croutons of jelly (No. 2442), and on top of the chopped jelly lay a fine truffle, peeled and cooked in wine.

← No. 2561 Lamb Pie-Loin Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2563 Goose Liver Pie, Cut Up →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is not a baking recipe so much as an assembly job: a decorative crust is baked empty around a filling of plain flour, then emptied and packed with slices of chilled foie gras terrine set in aspic. Read it as three separate projects — terrine, crust, garnish — done over two days.

The hinge: the crust is a container, not pastry to be eaten warmFilling the lined mold with dry flour is a blind-baking weight, the ancestor of pie beans. It must be fully cooled and dried out before the terrine goes in, or condensation will slacken the walls and the pie will collapse on the buffet.
"Slack oven"A cool oven; the book gives no figures, and modern equivalents offered for the term generally fall somewhere in the 250-325F range. An hour and a quarter at low heat is what lets the thick, egg-glazed crust take a fine color without scorching the pinched edge.
Foundation paste No. 135A stiff paste for raised pies, here enriched with egg yolks. It is meant to hold a sharp edge and a shape, not to be flaky.
Chopped jelly and croutons of jellyBoth are meat aspic: savory jelly set firm, then either chopped to a glittering rubble or cut into neat geometric shapes for the base. Modern practice uses a clarified, well-reduced stock set with gelatin; it needs to be firm enough to hold a cut, since a soft aspic will weep into the crust.
"Glaze over the inside with a brush"A coating to seal the baked shell against the aspic. The recipe does not say with what; melted butter or a thin coat of aspic would both answer. Without such a seal the crust is likelier to soften from the jelly.
The hinged moldA period pâté mold in decorated sections held by pins, which unclip so the baked crust can be freed intact. A modern springform pâté mold or a raised-pie mold with removable sides does the same work; anything one-piece will trap the crust.
Truffle cooked in wineA whole peeled truffle cooked in wine (the recipe does not name which), used as the crowning ornament. Truffle oil is not a substitute here -- the point is a visible object on top of the chopped jelly.
Holding and servingRanhofer's own note says it is intended for very large suppers, though he gives no yield. Foie gras terrine and aspic are both perishable -- keep the finished pie refrigerated and bring it out for service only, rather than letting it stand on a warm buffet for hours.
SourcingFoie gras is restricted or banned for sale in some jurisdictions. Where it is unavailable, a well-made chicken-liver or duck-liver terrine slices and sets in aspic the same way, though the color and richness differ.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and pieces like this belong to the grand cold-buffet tradition he inherited from Carême: architectural centerpieces meant to be seen from across a room before anyone tasted them. The pastry case here is decorative furniture rather than dinner, which is why Ranhofer bakes it empty, glazes it inside, and hides the plainest slices of terrine at the bottom where the light does not reach. Pâté de foie gras itself is generally traced to Strasbourg in the late eighteenth century and to a cook named Jean-Pierre Clause, though the fattening of geese for their livers is far older and is described by Roman writers. That Ranhofer files this among "Garnishings for Cold Dishes" rather than among the entrées says a good deal about the period: at a supper for several hundred, a foie gras pie was as much part of the table's decoration as the flowers.