No. 2563

Goose Liver Pie, Cut Up

Pate de Foies-Gras Decoupe

This entree is dressed on a crescent-shaped support, slightly circular, and made of tin; cover it with noodle (No. 142) or cooked paste (No. 131); this support should not be fastened on the center of the dish; being of a half-circular form it should stand at one side on the edge of the hollow center so that the garnishing can be dressed inside the crescent. Prepare a chopped forcemeat for game pie (No. 67); season it highly and mix with it an equal quantity of baking liver forcemeat (No. 86), pounded and passed through a sieve. Cut into large fillets one good raw foies-gras, set them in a bowl with raw, peeled and quartered truffles; season and pour over a few spoonfuls of Madeira wine or brandy. Butter a large cradle mold, line it with thin foundation paste (No. 135), and fill the bottom and around with the prepared forcemeat; on top of this range the foies-gras, fillets and truffles; cover over with more of the forcemeat, having it slightly rounded on the top, and set over this a flat of the same paste, fastening it well on the outer edges. Make a small opening in the center of the cover, egg it over, then lay this pie on a baking sheet and push it into a moderate oven to cook for one hour and a quarter, being careful to cover the paste with a buttered paper as fast as it browns. After removing it from the fire, pour into the opening a few spoonfuls of jelly (No. 103), mixed with a little melted glaze (No. 402) and Madeira wine. Before cutting the pie into slices it must be unmolded and kept for twenty-four hours in a cool place, so that the paste is slightly softened, otherwise it will be likely to crumble when cutting. Have the slices all of equal thickness, and dress them neatly in a half circle on the support. In the empty space it has formed range a tasteful cluster of round and peeled truffles cooked in wine and glazed over; surround these truffles and the pie with a thick piping of chopped jelly forced through a cornet.

← No. 2562 Goose Liver Pie Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2564 Cold Strasburg Liver Pie →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a numbered reference system at hand, so this reads as a set of assembly notes rather than a self-contained recipe. The essentials translate cleanly once the cross-references and the vanished equipment are decoded.

The hinge: the 24-hour restThe instruction to unmould and hold the pie a full day in a cool place is not a nicety. The crust needs that time to absorb moisture from the forcemeat and the aspic poured through the chimney; cut it warm and the pastry shatters and the slices fall apart on the plate.
"Moderate oven"Ranhofer gives no figure; read it as somewhere in the 325-375F range. An hour and a quarter at that temperature for a large pâté en croûte is reasonable, but judge by an instant-read thermometer through the chimney hole rather than the clock — 155-160F at the centre of the forcemeat.
The buttered paperHis "cover the paste with a buttered paper as fast as it browns" is a loose tent of parchment or foil laid over the top once the crust has colour, so the pastry does not burn while the interior comes up to temperature.
Cradle moldA deep, curved boat- or trough-shaped tinned mould of the kind made for pâté en croûte; Ranhofer does not describe its construction here. A modern hinged pâté mould is the nearest available equivalent. A loaf tin lined with parchment slings will work, though the sides bake paler.
The paste numbersNo. 135 foundation paste is a lining pastry built for structure rather than tenderness. No. 131 cooked paste and No. 142 noodle paste are the covering for the tin support: decorative, structural, and not intended to be eaten.
Jelly and glazeNo. 103 jelly is a clarified aspic; No. 402 glaze is stock reduced to a syrupy glace de viande. Poured warm through the chimney and set cold, they fill the gap that forms as the forcemeat contracts. Skip this and the sliced pie shows a hollow under the lid.
Foie gras, rawA "good raw foies-gras" means one whole duck or goose liver, roughly 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 lb. It must be brought to room temperature and deveined before slicing into fillets, which Ranhofer assumes his cooks know. Note that the sale of foie gras is restricted or prohibited in some jurisdictions; check locally before ordering.
TrufflesHe calls for raw, peeled, quartered truffles inside and whole glazed ones in the crescent. At current prices this is a garnish decision rather than a flavour one; a smaller quantity of fresh black truffle inside the forcemeat does more work than a display of them outside it.
SeasoningNo quantities are given anywhere. For a forcemeat of this kind, work to about 1.5 percent salt by weight of the total mixture, plus pepper and the Madeira or brandy marinade, and fry a spoonful to taste before the pie is sealed.
Yield and serviceA large cradle mould gives a good many even slices; this is a buffet piece for a long table, not a dinner for six. It is served cold, and the tin crescent is a display stand rather than part of the dish.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled after some three decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it belongs to the chapter on garnishings for cold dishes — the architecture of the nineteenth-century buffet, where food was built upward on socles, croustades and tin supports and judged largely by how it looked at a distance. Découpé simply means cut up: the pie is baked whole, rested, sliced, and then re-presented in a fan against a crescent-shaped stand with glazed truffles filling the hollow. Pâté de foie gras had been associated with Strasbourg since the eighteenth century, and the recipe immediately following this one in the book is a cold Strasbourg liver pie, which suggests Ranhofer expected his readers to know the distinction between a pâté baked in a crust and the potted, imported terrines then sold in tins. The elaborate presentation is the point of the entry; the pie itself he treats as something a competent garde manger could already produce, which is why almost every component here is a reference number to another page rather than a set of instructions.