No. 2938

Scrambled Eggs in a Risot Border with Ducks' Livers

Œufs Brouilles en Bordure de Risot aux Foies de Canard

Make a risot (No. 739), mixing in with it some cooked ducks' livers cut in quarter-inch squares. Butter a plain, round-top border mold (Fig. 138), fill it with the risot, pressing it firmly; keep warm and unmold just when ready to serve. Fill the center with scrambled eggs (No. 2940), mixing in some chopped truffles. Garnish around the eggs with small escalops of foies-gras rolled in Madeira sauce (No. 492).

← No. 2937 Scrambled Eggs a la Martinez Eggs & Omelets No. 2939 Scrambled Eggs with Fine Herbs →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional brigade, and this dish is really an assembly of four separate preparations. Everything except the eggs can be made ahead; the eggs are the part that decides whether it works.

The hinge: the eggsŒufs brouillés in this tradition are cooked slowly over low heat or in a bain-marie, stirred constantly, and pulled while still loose and custardy — closer to a thick sauce than to American curds. Once they set into dry lumps they will weep into the rice border and the plate is lost.
"Risot" is risottoThe dish points to Ranhofer's own risot formula at No. 739, which is not reproduced here. Make it a shade firmer and drier than you would for the table, since it has to hold a molded shape; a very loose risotto will slump the moment it is turned out.
Border moldA ring mold — a plain tube or savarin mold of about 6 cups will do. Butter it well, pack the rice in hard with the back of a spoon to eliminate air pockets, and hold it warm in a low oven or over hot water. Unmold onto a warm platter only at the moment of service.
Ducks' liversThese are ordinary duck livers, not foie gras: the recipe calls for them already cooked. Saute them in butter until firm and cooked through, cool, then dice to a quarter inch and fold into the rice. Chicken livers are the sensible substitute. The foie gras appears separately, as the garnish.
Escalops of foies-grasThin slices, most likely cut from a cooked terrine or block, warmed briefly in the sauce rather than cooked in it. Where foie gras is unavailable or not wanted, a good chicken-liver parfait sliced cold and simply set around the eggs keeps the shape of the dish.
Madeira sauceNo. 492 is Ranhofer's Madeira sauce, a brown sauce finished with Madeira. A reduced demi-glace with a splash of dry Madeira off the heat is the working equivalent. It should coat, not pool.
TrufflesChopped fresh black truffle folded into the eggs at the end. Preserved truffle peelings, drained and chopped, are the honest modern stand-in; truffle oil behaves quite differently and will dominate the eggs.
YieldA 6-cup ring with eight to ten eggs in the center serves four to six as a lunch or supper course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked during some thirty years at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how the book works: a numbered formula that assumes you already own the numbered formulas it points to. The rice border was a standard nineteenth-century service device, a way of presenting something soft u2014 scrambled eggs, creamed sweetbreads, a salpicon — with a wall around it and a garnish outside, in a period when elaborately shaped dishes are often said to have been sent to table whole and carved or spooned in the room. The dish pairs the cheap liver in the rice with sliced foie gras on the outside, with the expensive item placed where it will be seen.