No. 3550

Eggs a la Tremontaine, Red Wine Sauce

Œufs a la Tremontaine, Sauce au Vin Rouge

Mix some fruits previously cut dice shaped with whipped cream (No. 50); fill spherical molds of one and one-eighth inches in diameter, freeze and unmold. Coat some hinged tinned molds, the shape of an egg, containing a gill each, with pistachio ice cream (No. 3454); in the center place the spherically molded whipped cream, close and clean off the surplus, freeze, unmold and serve on a folded napkin. Serve separately a red wine sauce prepared as follows: Infuse some cinnamon and a slice of lemon in good red wine; sweeten and stand the saucepan on the fire. As soon as the wine begins to whiten thicken with fecula diluted in cold water, strain, leave stand till very cold, then serve.

← No. 3549 Dice, Dominoes and Cards Ices & Ice Creams No. 3551 Esmeralda Ice Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

A trompe-l'œil frozen dessert: pistachio ice cream moulded into an egg shape around a hidden ball of fruited whipped cream, with a cold spiced red wine sauce poured over. Nothing here is technically hard, but the assembly has to be done fast and cold.

A gillHalf a cup, 4 fluid ounces. Each egg mould holds that much in total, so six moulds come to about 3 cups all told, the hidden centres included.
The mouldsHinged tinned egg moulds are a pastry-shop antique. Two-part plastic egg moulds sold for chocolate work, or thick-walled plastic Easter eggs, do the same job; for the 1⅛-inch centres, a silicone sphere mould of roughly 3 cm is the direct modern equivalent.
FeculaPotato starch. Cornstarch behaves close enough, though potato starch sets clearer and is the better match for a sauce meant to stay glossy and translucent.
"As soon as the wine begins to whiten"Most likely the moment just short of a boil, when the surface clouds. Slurry the starch in cold water and add it there; boiling hard afterwards can thin the sauce again as the starch breaks down.
No. 50, whipped creamRanhofer's cross-reference is to his whipped cream, in effect a sweetened Chantilly. Whip it to soft-firm peaks only — overwhipped cream freezes grainy — and fold in the diced fruit at the last moment so the juices do not slacken it.
The hinge of the dishFreeze the fruit-and-cream spheres rock hard first, and chill the egg moulds before lining them. If the centre is soft when you press it into the pistachio ice cream, it drifts off-centre and the egg cuts open lopsided.
Lining and unmouldingWork the softened pistachio ice cream up the walls of each mould half with the back of a spoon, seat the sphere, close, scrape off the surplus at the seam, and return to the freezer for several hours. Unmould by dipping the closed mould in warm water for two or three seconds only.
ServingThe folded napkin is a period plating device that also absorbs melt. A chilled plate works as well. Yield is one egg per person; the sauce is served cold and separately, and should be made a day ahead so it is genuinely cold rather than cool.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the compendium of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it belongs to a whole family of nineteenth-century moulded ices that pretended to be something else — the neighbouring entry in the same section is ices shaped as dice, dominoes and playing cards. The conceit of a pale green shell hiding a differently coloured centre is the frozen cousin of the surprise bombe. The red wine sauce, wine infused with cinnamon and lemon, sweetened and bound with starch, is in effect a cold, thickened mulled wine. The name is not documented in the book beyond the heading, so any explanation of "Tremontaine" is guesswork.