No. 2613

Turbot a la Remoulade

Place some slices of turbot cooked in a court-bouillon (No. 38), in a deep dish; pour over oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and chopped parsley. Decorate a border mold (Fig. 138), with fanciful cuts of egg-white, truffles, pistachios and red lobster meat; cover these with a thick layer of jelly (No. 103), and fill it up with shrimps dressed with jellied mayonnaise (No. 613); unmold when the border becomes very firm, and fill the center with a pad of rice, or of veal and mutton fat, half of each; lay the pieces of turbot on top, having suppressed all the bones and skin therefrom; cover the fish with remoulade sauce (No. 624), mixed with jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), and serve separately a sauce-boat of remoulade sauce.

← No. 2612 Trout with Jelly, Tartar Sauce Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2614 Turkey a la Stevens—Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cold buffet piece from Delmonico's kitchen: a decorated aspic ring built around dressed turbot. Nothing in it is difficult, but everything depends on temperature discipline and on knowing which parts are meant to be eaten.

The hinge: work cold, and in stagesThe border mold has to be built in thin layers, each one set hard in the refrigerator before the next goes on, or the decorations float and the jelly clouds. Chill the mold itself, set a shallow film of jelly, dip each cut of egg-white, truffle, pistachio and lobster in liquid jelly and place it, chill again, then flood with the thick layer.
The pad is scenery, not foodA "pad of rice, or of veal and mutton fat, half of each" is a socle — a moulded plinth that raises the fish above the border for display. The fat socle was there for presentation rather than for eating. Build a low base of packed rice, or simply set the fish directly on a bed of shredded lettuce, if the dish is going to a table rather than a photograph.
Turbot and its stand-insTrue turbot is a European flatfish and expensive where it is sold at all. Halibut, brill or a thick fillet of sole poach the same way and slice as cleanly. Whatever you use, poach it whole or in large pieces, cool it in the court-bouillon, and only then lift off skin and bones — cold fish lifts clean, warm fish shreds.
Court-bouillonRanhofer's No. 38 is a court-bouillon of the usual period type: water acidulated with wine or vinegar, aromatic vegetables and herbs, salt and peppercorns, brought to the simmer before the fish goes in. Keep it at a bare shiver, never a rolling boil.
Jelly and jellied mayonnaiseThe book's jelly (No. 103) is a clarified aspic; powdered or leaf gelatine in a good clarified fish stock does the same work. "Jellied mayonnaise" is mayonnaise into which melted aspic has been whisked — the aspic must be lukewarm, not hot, or the emulsion splits, and the mixture must be used immediately because it sets in the bowl.
Remoulade means the French sauceNo. 624 is a mustard-sharpened mayonnaise worked with chopped pickles and herbs. It is not the pink Louisiana sauce of the same name. Make it stiff, since half of it will be loosened with jellied mayonnaise for masking the fish.
Raw-egg sauces on a buffetBoth the mayonnaise and the remoulade are uncooked. Use pasteurised eggs if the dish will stand out for any length of time, and keep the finished piece refrigerated until the moment it goes to table.
UnmoldingDip the border mold in warm — not hot — water for three or four seconds, wipe it, and invert onto a chilled platter. Longer than that and the decorated face melts to a smear.
YieldAs a rough guide, an 8- to 9-inch ring with about 2 lb of trimmed fish will serve six to eight as a cold course; the original specifies no quantities.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to its most theatrical department: the cold buffet, where fish and poultry were masked in aspic, set on carved socles of rice or hard fat, and inlaid with truffle and egg-white cut into flowers and crescents. The technique belongs to the same world as the mirrored chaud-froid platters Ranhofer himself worked in, and the socle of veal and mutton fat is the clearest sign of how far the aesthetic ran from eating. The sauce name is generally traced to French usage of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with a frequently repeated but unproven derivation from a Picard dialect word for horseradish; by Ranhofer's day it had settled into a firm mustard-and-herb mayonnaise served with cold fish and shellfish.