No. 2680

Artichoke Bottoms a la Mornay

Fonds d'Artichauts a la Mornay

Wipe dry ten to twelve cooked artichoke bottoms, all of the same size; fill the hollow side with a foies-gras baking forcemeat (No. 81), mixed with a few spoonfuls of chopped cooked truffles; smooth the top of the preparation and cover with a layer of well-reduced Mornay sauce (No. 504); bestrew the sauce with parmesan cheese, and brown for two minutes under a salamander (Fig. 123).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stocked larder, so the recipe is really an assembly instruction: three components made elsewhere, combined and glazed. Everything hinges on the sauce being reduced thick enough to sit on top rather than run off.

Artichoke bottomsFresh bottoms mean large globe artichokes trimmed of leaves and choke, rubbed with lemon and simmered in acidulated water (a blanc) until tender, about 20-25 minutes. Good-quality jarred or frozen bottoms are a legitimate substitute; drain and dry them thoroughly, as Ranhofer's "wipe dry" is what keeps the sauce from sliding.
The forcemeatNo. 81 is a baking forcemeat enriched with foie gras. A workable stand-in is a fine chicken or veal mousseline (breast meat, egg white, cream, worked cold) folded with mashed foie gras or a good pâté, plus the chopped truffle. It should be firm enough to dome slightly and hold its shape.
Mornay sauceA bechamel finished with grated cheese, in some nineteenth-century versions enriched with egg yolks. "Well-reduced" is the operative phrase: it should coat a spoon heavily and barely fall from it. A thin Mornay will pool in the pan and the tops will scorch before they glaze.
SalamanderAn overhead broiler is the direct equivalent. Set the rack close, preheat fully, and watch continuously; two minutes is the whole of the browning, and Parmesan goes from gold to bitter quickly.
Cooking the filling throughThe two minutes under the salamander only colors the surface. A raw mousseline filling needs to be set first, either by baking the filled bottoms at 350F for 12-15 minutes or by gently poaching them in stock before saucing, then glazing.
TrufflesFresh black truffle is a luxury purchase; preserved truffle peelings give aroma at a fraction of the cost. Truffle oil is not a substitute here, since the point is texture and specks of black through the pale forcemeat.
YieldTen to twelve bottoms serve five or six as a first course, two apiece. Send them out immediately, as the glaze dulls within minutes.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in some 3,500 numbered entries, each cross-referencing the others the way a kitchen actually operates. This dish belongs to the long French tradition of treating the artichoke bottom as an edible container — a shallow cup for a garnish, a salpicon, or as here a forcemeat. Mornay sauce, a béchamel with cheese, is generally traced to the mid-nineteenth-century Paris restaurant world; the attribution to any particular Mornay is traditional rather than documented. The salamander of Fig. 123 was an iron plate heated in the fire and held over a dish to glaze it, the ancestor of the overhead broiler, and the name survives in professional kitchens for the appliance that replaced it.