No. 2593

Soles a la Mazagran-Fillets

Filets de Soles a la Mazagran

This entree is to be dressed on a wooden foundation fastened to a dish having a pyramidical wooden support in its center, both to be covered with white paper. First prepare a small variegated macedoine salad (No. 2650); let it macerate for two hours in its seasoning, then drain it off, and dress the salad with thick mayonnaise (No. 606), and keep it on ice. Suppress the shells from the claws and tails of two lobsters simply cooked in a court-bouillon (No. 38), and left till cold; split the claws in two through their thickness, and brush over with half-set jelly, so as to be able to fasten them together again; also divide the tail meats into several slices from top to bottom, and wet each slice with half-set jelly, so as to be able to reshape them as before; keep these tails and claws on ice. Cook the fillets of three soles in a baking tin with white wine court-bouillon (No. 39), and as soon as done drain and range them on another baking tin and cover over with buttered paper; let cool off under a weight, then pare them all of the same length, not too freely, suppressing only the thin ends. Take the fillets up one by one, dip them into a white chaudfroid sauce (No. 596), reduced with a part of the stock they are cooked in, and range then once more on the same tin, keeping them a slight distance apart; cool them off on ice, and then cut away the surplus sauce. With the prepared salad, mingled with the fragments of lobster tail, cover the pyramidical support all around so as to increase its thickness, but keeping it in the same shape; smooth and cover over with a layer of jellied mayonnaise (No. 613). Against this pyramid dress the fillets of soles standing upright, one overlapping the other, and cover them with half-set jelly put on with a brush. On top of the pyramid dress the two prepared claws and tails, surround them with a thick string of chopped jelly to keep them in position and cover them as well with the half-set jelly. Place all around the bottom of the dish even-sized fine jelly croutons (No. 2442), and keep the dish for ten minutes on ice, then serve with a separate mayonnaise sauce (No. 606).

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cold buffet showpiece from a professional kitchen, written on the assumption that you have a dozen other numbered recipes at hand. Reduced to its parts it is poached sole coated in chaudfroid, a vegetable salad bound with mayonnaise, and dressed lobster, all set with aspic.

The hinge: jelly at the right set"Half-set jelly" means aspic cooled to the point where it coats the back of a spoon and just begins to thicken: any thinner and it runs off and glazes nothing; too far gone and it goes lumpy and dulls the surface. Keep a bowl of it over ice water beside you, stir it now and then, and rewarm gently if it tightens up.
The wooden foundationThe socle is a carved wooden pyramid set on a board, papered over so no food touches bare wood. It is scaffolding, not something to eat. A modern equivalent is a small inverted bowl or a block of stiff aspic on a chilled platter; if you use wood, seal it under parchment as directed.
Chaudfroid sauceA white sauce (velouté or béchamel-based) enriched with cream and set with gelatin, thinned here with the sole's poaching liquid. It should nap the fillets in a smooth opaque layer at about the same consistency as pouring cream, then be chilled hard before trimming the drips away.
MacedoineNot a specific vegetable but a mixture of them cut in small even dice, typically carrot, turnip, green beans and peas. The two-hour maceration is presumably in a vinaigrette-style seasoning; it must be drained thoroughly or it will loosen the mayonnaise and slump the pyramid.
Court-bouillonNo. 38 is the court-bouillon called for the lobsters; No. 39 is specified as the white wine version for the fish. Salted water with wine, sliced onion, carrot, bay, thyme and peppercorns will stand in for either. Cool the lobsters in their liquid, not out of it, or the tail meat dries.
Cooling under a weightSole fillets curl as they set. Pressing them flat between trays with a light weight, as directed, is what allows them to be pared to matching lengths and stood upright against the socle. Do not skip it.
Jelly croutonsFirm aspic poured shallow, chilled solid, then cut into even shapes to border the dish. Set it a little stiffer than the coating jelly so the pieces hold their edges on the plate.
Temperature and timingThis is cooked fish and shellfish held cold, so the only real risk is time out of refrigeration. Assemble in stages with everything returning to the refrigerator between steps, and do not let the finished piece stand at room temperature while guests admire it.
YieldThree soles, filleted in the usual way, give up to a dozen fillets, and two lobsters supply the crown and the fragments folded into the salad. The recipe states no portion count; as a first course a piece of this size would serve a table rather than one or two. Mayonnaise is passed separately.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of the kitchen he ran at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to its long chapter of cold buffet work — dishes built upward on papered wooden socles, glazed with aspic, and meant to be seen from across a room before anyone tasted them. The name is generally traced to Mazagran, the Algerian post where a small French garrison held out against a far larger besieging force in 1840; the episode became a patriotic set piece, and French cooks and cafés attached the name to any number of unrelated preparations, including the coffee drink still called mazagran. Ranhofer's version tells you less about Algeria than about the American Gilded Age table, where a fish course could reasonably require two lobsters, three soles, a carved pyramid and half a day of chilling.