No. 2987

Timbale of Gnocquis, a la Choiseul

Timbale de Gnocquis a la Choiseul

Prepare a paste with a pint of milk boiled with a quarter of a pound of butter; remove it at the first boil and put in a half pound of sifted flour; prepare as a pate-a-chou (No. 132); boil for a few moments on the fire, then incorporate fourteen eggs, salt and four ounces of grated parmesan. Turn this paste over on the table and finish with sufficient flour to have it firm and solid, then roll it out into thin strings a quarter of an inch in width, and divide these into quarter-inch lengths; roll each one to the shape of a ball and plunge them into boiling water to poach for three minutes, then drain and lay them in a saucepan with grated Swiss cheese and bechamel sauce (No. 409). Line a timbale mold with thin foundation paste (No. 135), pour in the gnoquis and wet the inside upper edge; cover the timbale with a flat of the same paste, attach the edges solidly together and cook for one hour in a medium oven, remove, unmold and serve at once, dressed on a dish, with a little buttered veloute sauce (No. 415) served separately.

← No. 2986 Tagliatelli in Croustade Macaroni, Rice & Farinaceous No. 2988 Timbale Milanese of Macaroni or Noodles →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is gnocchi à la parisienne — choux paste rather than potato — baked inside a pastry case. Ranhofer writes in cross-references, so a few of the numbered recipes need translating before you start.

The hinge: the paste must be firmFourteen eggs into a half pound of flour is a very slack choux, far wetter than a piping paste. The instruction to "finish with sufficient flour to have it firm and solid" on the table is not optional; without it the strings cannot be rolled or cut and the dumplings dissolve in the poaching water.
ScaleA pint of milk, 1/4 lb butter, 1/2 lb flour, 14 eggs and 4 oz parmesan is restaurant quantity — it will fill a large timbale and serve a dozen or so. Quartering the paste gives a domestic amount, and the egg count then becomes three to four, added one at a time until the paste is firm rather than by strict number.
Medium ovenAround 350–375F. The filling is already cooked and sauced; the hour is for the raw pastry lining, which must colour and set through before unmoulding.
The numbered cross-referencesNo. 132 is pâte à chou, No. 135 a foundation or lining paste (a stiff, short pastry that will stand up when unmoulded — pâte à foncer, not puff), No. 409 béchamel and No. 415 velouté.
Timbale moldA deep, straight- or slope-sided metal mould, plain or fluted. A charlotte mould or a deep straight-sided cake tin lined with parchment collars works; it must be sturdy enough that the baked case releases in one piece.
PoachingRanhofer says to plunge them into boiling water for three minutes; a gentler simmer is kinder to the little balls, which a hard rolling boil can knock apart. Drain well or the bechamel thins and the pastry base goes sodden.
Cheeses"Grated Swiss" here means Gruyère or Emmental. Buy parmesan in the piece and grate it; pre-grated tubs carry anti-caking starch that mutes the sauce.
Sealing and servingWetting the inside upper edge and pressing the lid on hard matters — a leaking seam floods the mould and welds the case to the metal. Unmould and serve immediately; the velouté goes separately in a sauceboat, lightly mounted with butter.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how thoroughly that kitchen was French: the gnocchi are the Parisian kind, made from choux paste and cheese rather than potato or semolina, a preparation that belongs to the Escoffier-era repertoire far more than to Italy. Enclosing them in a pastry timbale — a mould-shaped case baked closed and turned out whole — was the standard nineteenth-century way to bring a soft, saucy filling to the table as an architectural object; the same section of the book handles macaroni and noodles the same way. Dish names honouring the duc de Choiseul, Louis XV's foreign minister, are conventionally attached to garnishes and preparations of this sort, though the link between the man and any particular formula is traditional rather than documented, and Ranhofer offers no explanation for it.