No. 2575

Cold Salmis of Quails a la Balzac

Salmis Froid de Cailles a la Balzac

Roast eight quails; remove the breasts and break up the legs and bones. Fry some shallots in butter, moisten with white wine and half-glaze sauce (No. 413); put in the broken-up carcasses and let simmer for twenty minutes, then strain through a sieve, and add two gelatine leaves, so as to thicken to a good consistency. Decorate some pigeon ballotine molds, the same as ballotines a la Madison (No. 2427), with fanciful cuts of egg-white and tongue; coat with jelly and lay the breasts in the center; finish filling with the cooled-off jelly; unmold the ballotines, range them in a circle on a bread socle covered with green butter (No. 583), and fill the center with chopped jelly, and around with croutons (No. 2442).

← No. 2574 Cold Salmis of Partridges Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2576 Salmon Darne, Decorated →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a cold buffet piece from the Delmonico kitchen: roast quail breasts set in aspic in small molds, arranged on a carved bread base. Ranhofer assumes you have a stockpot of demi-glace and a working knowledge of his cross-references, so the work is mostly in assembling the parts before you chill anything.

The hinge: the aspic must set firm but taste of gameEverything depends on the strained salmis liquid gelling clean and clear. Reduce it before adding gelatine, skim the fat off carefully, and test a spoonful on a cold saucer; if it does not set within a few minutes in the refrigerator, it will collapse when unmolded. Clarify with egg white if it is cloudy, since the decoration is meant to be visible through it.
"Two gelatine leaves" is not a fixed quantityVictorian sheet gelatine varied widely in size and strength, and Ranhofer gives no volume for the sauce. Modern sheets run about 2 g each and set roughly 100 ml to a sliceable jelly; work from the setting test above rather than the leaf count.
Half-glaze sauce (No. 413)This is essentially demi-glace: brown espagnole sauce reduced with brown stock until it coats a spoon. A good reduced brown stock is the closest ready substitute; avoid anything sweetened or thickened with starch, which clouds the jelly.
Roasting the quailsQuails are small and lean. Roast at 425-450F for about 12-15 minutes, until the breast is just pink at the bone, then cool before removing the breasts. Overcooked quail breast turns dry and grey and no amount of aspic hides it.
Green butter (No. 583)Butter pounded with blanched parsley or spinach, which Ranhofer used to give the bread socle a uniform green surface. It is a decorative coating, not a sauce, and it is there because a cold platter had to look built.
The bread socle and moldsThe socle is a base cut from a dense loaf, dried out and coated. Small dariole molds, ramekins, or a silicone half-sphere tray will do the work of Ranhofer's pigeon ballotine molds. Line them with a thin film of jelly, lay the egg-white and tongue cutouts into that film so the pattern holds, then build up.
Cooked tonguePickled or brined beef tongue, sliced thin, was commonly used for decoration in cold work because it holds a strong pink and cuts cleanly. Bresaola or a firm cooked ham slice gives similar contrast if tongue is inconvenient.
Keep it cold, and serve it coldA gelatine dish holding cooked poultry is a good medium for bacteria if it sits out. Assemble, chill thoroughly, and return the platter to refrigeration between services rather than leaving it on a sideboard for hours.
YieldEight quails give sixteen small breasts. Ranhofer does not say how many molds to fill; two breasts to a mold gives eight, which would serve eight as one course in a long menu, or about four as a lunch dish.

A Little History

Salmis is a long-established technique in French game cookery: the bird is partly or wholly roasted, the choice cuts are taken off, and the carcass is broken up and simmered with wine and a brown sauce so that the bones give back their flavour to the dish they came from. Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), sets a cold version here among his garnishings for cold dishes, where the aim is as much architectural as culinary; the bread socle, the green butter, the ring of croutons and the chopped jelly in the middle all belong to the grand buffet style of the period, in which a dish was constructed to be looked at across a room before it was eaten. The name is one of the many literary and personal dedications scattered through the book.