No. 391

Hot Aspic Essence, Clear and Thickened

Essence d'Aspic Chaude Claire et liee

Put into a saucepan, half a gill of vinegar, a few bits of tarragon, a bunch of parsley, a quarter of a pound of minced ham and a coffeespoonful of mignonette, a little mace; let all simmer for fifteen minutes, then moisten with half a pint of veal blond (No. 423), and a pint and a half of consomme (No. 189); reduce it all to half, strain it through a sieve and clarify with one egg-white; press the aspic through a napkin and use it for roast poultry.

Thickened Aspic.—Before clarifying, add its equal quantity of espagnole, and reduce it to the consistency of a sauce, despumate the surface and strain through a tammy.

← No. 390 Ham Essence Stocks, Essences & Auxiliaries No. 392 Mushroom Essence →

For the Modern Kitchen

A tarragon-and-ham flavoured essence built on two of Ranhofer's base preparations, finished either clear or thickened with espagnole. It is a sauce component, not a jellied aspic.

The name is misleadingNothing in this recipe is chilled or served cold; it is a hot essence spooned over roast poultry, with no gelatine and no mould. "Aspic" here seems to point to a seasoning profile rather than a set jelly, though the recipe does not say so.
MeasuresHalf a gill of vinegar is 1/4 cup. A "coffeespoonful" is somewhere between a half and a full teaspoon depending on whether the English or French sense is meant. Half a pint is 1 cup, a pint and a half is 3 cups.
MignonetteMignonette pepper is coarsely cracked white or mixed peppercorns, not the flower and not a modern spice blend. Crush whole peppercorns under a pan; a half to a full teaspoon, depending on how you read the coffeespoon.
The two base stocksVeal blond (No. 423) is a pale veal stock, cooked without browning the bones; No. 189 is one of Ranhofer's consommes, i.e. a clarified meat stock, beef-based but usually with veal or fowl in it as well. A good unsalted veal stock and a clear meat stock will stand in, but keep both unseasoned since the liquid reduces by half.
Reduce before clarifying, not afterRanhofer's order matters: the flavour is concentrated first, then a single egg white raft pulls the sediment. Clarifying a thin stock and then boiling it hard undoes the work.
StrainingA napkin is a doubled square of damp muslin or a coffee filter; a tammy is a fine woven cloth used to push thick sauces through. Dampen the cloth first or it drinks half the essence.
Espagnole for the thickened versionEqual quantity of espagnole means equal to the reduced essence, added before the egg white. Espagnole is a brown roux-based sauce built on brown stock (some versions include tomato); a dark roux-thickened brown stock does the same job.
DespumateSimply skim the fat and scum from the surface as it simmers, repeatedly. Set the pan half off the heat so the convection pushes the scum to one side.
YieldThe clear version reduces to roughly 2 cups. As an essence it is used by the spoonful rather than ladled out as a sauce, so this goes a long way; it freezes well in small portions.

A Little History

Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) after decades running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's opening chapters are a catalogue of building blocks rather than finished dishes: blonds, consommes, essences, glazes, each cross-referenced by number so that a brigade could assemble a menu from parts. An "essence" in this system is a stock reduced hard with an aromatic accent, used in tablespoons to give a sauce its direction. The tarragon-and-vinegar seasoning echoes the flavouring that went into the savoury jellies of the period, though the origin of the word aspic is unsettled. The alternative finish with espagnole belongs to a French practice that Careme codified rather than invented, and that Delmonico's carried over to Manhattan.