No. 2690

Artichokes-Whole-a la Rachel

Artichauts Entiers a la Rachel

These proportions are for six artichokes: Pare them by removing the hardest leaves next to the stalk, suppress the green bottom part and cut off the tip of each leaf straight; empty the inside by removing all the choke (Fig. 543), wash and drain well. Cut a medium-sized onion and one shallot into small squares, fry in butter and add one pound of fresh mushrooms chopped very finely; place the saucepan on the fire and keep stirring with a spoon until the mushrooms have their moisture reduced, then add some chopped parsley and fresh bread-crumbs; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and pour in a little bechamel (No. 409). Fill the artichokes bomb-shaped with this and lay on top one fine turned or channeled mushroom (No. 118); cover with bards of fat pork, tie with two turns of string and braise in a low saucepan lined with pieces of fat pork, moistening with white wine mirepoix stock (No. 419); drain this off when done, skim the fat and reduce to a quarter-glaze. Dress the artichokes and pour a little of the stock over. Serve separately a veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with mushroom essence (No. 392), the rest of the stock and a little well-buttered tomato puree (No. 730); serve.

← No. 2689 Artichokes-Whole-a la Barigoule Artichokes & Asparagus No. 2691 Artichokes-Whole-Boiled, with White or Vinai →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stocks and mother sauces already standing, so most of the work here is assembling components the book numbers elsewhere. Stripped to essentials, this is six trimmed artichokes stuffed with duxelles and braised in wine.

The hinge: dry the duxellesThe mushrooms must be cooked until their moisture is genuinely gone and the mixture squeaks against the pan, before parsley, crumbs and a spoonful of bechamel go in. A wet filling will slump out of the artichoke and dilute the braising stock into something thin and grey.
Trimming and holdingPare off the tough outer leaves, cut the tips square with scissors, and scoop the hairy choke with a spoon. Rub every cut surface with lemon and hold the trimmed artichokes in acidulated water, or they will blacken before they reach the pan.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of pork back fat, tied over the stuffing to keep it from drying and to baste the leaves. Fatback from a butcher is the true article; unsmoked salt pork sliced thin and blanched to draw the salt is the usual stand-in. Smoked bacon will dominate the mushrooms.
Mirepoix stock and the saucesNo. 419 is Ranhofer's mirepoix stock: aromatic vegetables with pork or ham trimmings, moistened with white wine, as the recipe's own "white wine mirepoix stock" implies. Without the full Epicurean pantry, a good chicken stock with a glass of dry white wine and a handful of diced aromatics does the same work. The finishing sauce is velouté sharpened with mushroom essence, the reduced braising stock and a spoonful of buttered tomato purée.
Quarter-glazeThe braising stock reduced until syrupy and coating but still pourable, short of a true glace; Ranhofer does not define the exact degree here. Skim the fat first or the reduction turns greasy rather than glossy.
BraisingA low covered pan on gentle heat; the recipe specifies a shallow saucepan lined with pieces of fat pork and gives no oven or temperature. Liquid coming perhaps a third of the way up. Reckon 40 to 50 minutes for medium globe artichokes; they are done when a leaf pulls free without resistance and the base takes a knife point easily.
The turned mushroomNo. 118 is the decorative fluted cap, cut in spiral channels with a paring knife. It is garnish alone; a whole sautéed cap set on each dome does the same job.
YieldSix artichokes, one per person, as a hot vegetable course before or alongside the roast. As a modern main they will feed three.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire written down, cross-referenced by number like a technical manual. Dishes named "à la Rachel" run through nineteenth-century French cookery and are generally traced to Élisa Félix, the tragedienne known as Rachel, who dominated the Paris stage in the 1840s; the name attached itself to a scatter of unrelated preparations, as theatrical dedications tended to. The technique underneath is older and more durable than the name: duxelles, finely chopped mushrooms cooked dry with shallot, is credited by tradition to the household of the Marquis d'Uxelles in the seventeenth century, and it is the same filling that stuffs tomatoes, lines a beef Wellington and stretches a sauce. Braising a whole stuffed artichoke under pork fat, meanwhile, belongs to the same family as the older artichauts à la barigoule that Ranhofer prints immediately before this one.