No. 596

Chaudfroid White with Veloute and Blond Chaudfroid

Chaudfroid Blanc au Veloute et Chaudfroid Blond

Pour into a saucepan, one pint of veloute (No. 415) (for lean, use fish veloute); reduce it with half a pint of chicken broth (No. 188), or veal stock (No. 423), then add one pint of aspic jelly (No. 103); boil up this sauce, remove it to the side of the fire to be able to despumate for fifteen minutes, skimming it carefully in the meanwhile, then take it off the fire, strain, and try a little before using, to see whether it is sufficiently thick to cover the meats. For blond chaudfroid, add chicken glaze (No. 398) to white veloute (No. 415).

Thickened with Egg-yolks a l' Allemande.-Veloute (No. 415) reduced with essence of chicken (No. 387) well despumated, and thickened with egg-yolks, mixed with half as much melted white jelly.

Blond Chaudfroid.-Is made with half brown and half white chaudfroid.

← No. 595 Chaudfroid Green or Ravigote Cold Sauces No. 597 Chicken and Game Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a coating sauce, not a table sauce: a velouté fortified with aspic so that it sets to a smooth opaque jacket over cold poultry, fish or galantines. Ranhofer writes in cross-references, so the whole thing depends on components made elsewhere in the book.

The hinge: test the setRanhofer's instruction to "try a little before using" is the whole recipe. Chill a spoonful on a cold plate; it should firm to a sliceable but tender jelly. Too much aspic gives a rubbery shell, too little and it slides off the meat.""
Working temperatureThe sauce must be coated on when it is thick enough to cling but still pourable, over food that is thoroughly cold. Too warm and it runs off; too cool and it ropes and streaks. Set the bowl over ice water and stir until it just begins to thicken.
DespumateAn older term for holding a sauce at a bare simmer at the edge of the heat so albumin and fat rise and can be skimmed. Fifteen minutes of this is what makes the coating glossy and clear rather than cloudy.
Velouté (No. 415)A white roux moistened with veal or chicken stock, cooked out until it loses any floury taste. The "fish velouté" alternative is the same thing built on fish stock.
"For lean"Meaning maigre, for fast days when meat stock was not permitted. Hence the fish velouté substitution; presumably a fish-based aspic would be used as well, though Ranhofer does not say so here.
Aspic jelly (No. 103)A clarified, strongly gelatinous stock. Modern stock is rarely as gelatin-rich as Ranhofer's, so a 1:1 velouté-to-aspic ratio may not set. Bloomed powdered gelatin in the aspic is the practical fix; judge by the chilled-spoon test rather than the stated volumes.
Chicken glaze (No. 398)Stock reduced to a syrup that sets solid when cold. A spoonful tints the sauce ivory-gold and deepens the flavour; that, not a different method, is all "blond" means here. The final line offers the alternative of half brown chaudfroid, half white.
The allemande variantEgg yolks are tempered into the reduced velouté away from fierce heat; overheating will curdle them and leave the coating granular. The "half as much melted white jelly" is presumably the aspic, folded in after the yolks have thickened the base.
Yield and holdingThe stated volumes give at most about two and a half pints before reduction, enough to coat a poached chicken or a large fish with something over for the second and third passes. Coated pieces belong in the refrigerator throughout; the long warm working period is the food-safety weak point in the original method.

A Little History

Chaudfroid means simply "hot-cold": a sauce cooked hot and served cold, set with gelatin so that a poached bird or a galantine can be presented glazed, sliced and decorated on a buffet. It is a cornerstone of the nineteenth-century cuisine froide that Charles Ranhofer practised at Delmonico's in New York, where The Epicurean (1894) recorded a kitchen organised around elaborate cold display pieces for banquets and balls. The name is often traced to an eighteenth-century anecdote of a nobleman called away from table and returning to find his supper cold but improved, though that story is traditional rather than documented. What the entry really shows is how such a kitchen worked: the sauce is nothing but a set of numbered references to velouté, aspic, broth and glaze already prepared in quantity elsewhere, assembled by a cook who was expected to know all of them by heart.