No. 2679

Artichoke Bottoms a la Montglas

Fonds d'Artichauts a la Montglas

Have some artichoke bottoms prepared and cooked the same as for la Villars (No. 2682); drain and fill the hollow centers with a montglas garnishing cut in small sticks, composed of red beef tongue, truffles, mushrooms and some cooked white meat of a chicken; mingle them with a well reduced allemande sauce (No. 407), and remove from the fire at the first boil and leave till cold; then fill the artichoke bottoms, forming them bomb-shaped on top; cover with chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), smooth and strew bread-crumbs and grated parmesan over the entire surface. Range them on a small baking sheet, pour plenty of clarified butter over and finish cooking in a slack oven, basting frequently.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is one entry in Ranhofer's cross-referenced system, so it reads as a set of instructions to other numbers rather than a standalone recipe. The hinge is the filling: the salpicon must be bound with sauce reduced thick enough to hold a dome, then chilled solid, or the forcemeat cap will slump in the oven.

What "la Villars" means for the bottomsNo. 2682 supplies the preparing and cooking of the bottoms; Ranhofer's usual treatment is a blanc (water with lemon juice, a little flour and salt), which keeps them pale, though the wording of No. 2682 is not reproduced here. Fresh globe artichoke bottoms are the original intent; good jarred or frozen bottoms work, drained and dried well before filling.
Montglas garnishingA julienne ("small sticks") of cured red beef tongue, truffle, cooked mushroom and poached white chicken meat. Cured tongue is the piece most likely to defeat you; a good deli-cured tongue or a firm smoked ham makes a reasonable stand-in, and a teaspoon of truffle paste stretches one small truffle across the whole dish.
Allemande sauceRanhofer's No. 407 is a velouté well reduced and bound with egg yolks (and cream). The recipe's direction to take the mixture off the fire at the first boil should be followed as written; a yolk-bound sauce is liable to break if held at a boil. Reduce it until a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track.
Chicken quenelle forcemeatNo. 89 is a pounded raw chicken forcemeat of the quenelle type, made with panada and butter or cream. A food processor does the work in a minute; keep everything cold and do not overrun it or the cap will be rubbery.
"Slack oven"Around 300-325F. The gentle heat is deliberate: the forcemeat needs to set through without the crumb and parmesan crust browning hard before the centre is hot. Allow roughly 20-30 minutes for standard bottoms, until the domes are firm to the touch.
Clarified butter and basting"Plenty of clarified butter" means enough to pool on the sheet so you can spoon it back over. Clarified butter is used because the milk solids in whole butter would scorch during repeated basting.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no number. Count one filled bottom per person as a hot entrée or garnish, two as a small first course, and serve immediately — the forcemeat is at its best straight from the oven.

A Little History

À la Montglas is one of the fixed garnishes of nineteenth-century French kitchens: a salpicon or julienne of pickled tongue, truffle, mushroom and usually chicken or foie gras, bound with a thick sauce, and it is generally traced to the household of the Marquis de Montglas. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete working reference rather than a book to cook from front to back, which is why this entry sends you to three other numbers before it says anything of its own. Artichoke bottoms filled, capped with forcemeat and gratinated were the sort of composed vegetable garnish that filled out an elaborate American restaurant menu of the period.