No. 646

Parma Brochettes Garnishing

Garniture Brochettes de Parme

Made with semolino cooked in light broth and a grain of salt. Prepare a well cooked and thick mush; remove it from the fire, and finish it with some grated parmesan and butter, seasoning it to taste. Spread this preparation in layers on baking sheets dampened with cold water, having each one an eighth of an inch thick; as soon as they are cold and stiff, cut them into one inch rounds; prepare half as many rounds of the very best fresh Swiss cheese. Take some small wooden skewers, and pass on each three rounds, one of cheese and two of semolino, placing the cheese one in the center; dip them in beaten eggs, and roll them in white bread-crumbs. A few minutes before serving plunge them into hot fat, a few at the time, to heat and get a nice color, then drain and serve them separately on a folded napkin, or else around the piece to be garnished.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a garnish from Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894): fried semolina and cheese sandwiches on little skewers, meant to circle a roast or be passed separately. It works as a canapé on its own terms, but a few of the terms need translating.

Semolino is semolinaUse durum semolina, the coarse pale kind sold for pasta and gnocchi alla romana, not fine semolina flour or farina. Whisk it into simmering broth in a thin stream to avoid lumps.
"Light broth" and the seasoningA mild unsalted or lightly salted chicken or veal stock. The "grain of salt" is deliberately restrained because the parmesan brings plenty; salt at the end, after the cheese goes in.
The hinge: a genuinely thick mushThe paste must be stiff enough to slice cleanly when cold, so cook it well past the point where it looks done — roughly 1 part semolina to 4 parts liquid by volume, stirred until it pulls away from the pan in a mass. Underdone paste will slump in the fryer and the rounds will burst.
An eighth of an inch is thinSpread on a water-dampened sheet with a wet offset spatula. Chilling for an hour or more firms it further; at this thinness two rounds plus a matching slice of cheese give a skewer about three-eighths of an inch deep.
"Fresh Swiss cheese"Probably a young Swiss mountain cheese — Gruyere or Emmental cut from a fresh rather than a long-aged wheel. Cut it the same thickness as the semolina so the layers melt together rather than the cheese running out.
SkewersSmall wooden skewers or cocktail picks. Trim them so they sit neatly on a platter.
Breading and fryingEgg and crumb, then chill again for 15–20 minutes to set the coating. Fry at 350–375°F, a few at a time so the fat does not drop in temperature, for about a minute to a side — long enough to colour and warm the cheese, no longer.
Yield and servingFry them at the last moment; they lose their crispness within minutes of leaving the fat. The "folded napkin" is a linen napkin on a platter to absorb grease — a paper-lined dish does the same job.

A Little History

Garnishings occupy their own long chapter in The Epicurean, Charles Ranhofer's 1894 record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and they show how the grand service of the period worked: a roast or braise arrived surrounded by small constructed items, each with a name that told the kitchen exactly what to build. Names like "de Parme" and "à la parmesane" in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage generally signalled parmesan rather than any dish from Parma itself, and the semolina base here belongs to the same family as Italian gnocchi alla romana, which Italian and French cooks alike cooled in a slab and cut into shapes before browning. The brochette — a small skewer — was a fashionable format for fried garnishes in this era, and resembles the attelet or decorative silver skewer used on cold buffet pieces, though Ranhofer sensibly calls for plain wood here since these go into hot fat.