No. 649

Cardinal Garnishing

Garniture Cardinal

The cardinal garnishing is composed of twelve ounces of lobster quenelles made with a teaspoon (No. 155), twelve ounces of sauted shrimps, twelve ounces of small onions blanched and then cooked in fish stock (No. 417) and let fall to a glaze, six ounces of small whole truffles rolled in a little fish glaze (No. 399) and fresh butter, then arranged pyramidically, the onions dressed the same. Dress the quenelles in clusters and cover them lightly with a Cardinal sauce (No. 442), and the shrimps sauted in butter with fine herbs and lemon juice. Some Cardinal sauce to be served separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is not a standalone dish but an assembly — Ranhofer's shorthand for a red-and-white garnish to be arranged around a poached fish, most often turbot, sole or salmon. Every numbered cross-reference points to another recipe in The Epicurean, so the entry only works if you supply those four components yourself.

What the cross-references areNo. 155 is the quenelle forcemeat; No. 417 a fish stock; No. 399 a fish glaze (fish stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm); No. 442 the Cardinal sauce, typically a fish velouté or béchamel finished with lobster butter and coral. Without a fish glaze and a Cardinal sauce on hand, there is no point starting.
Quenelles shaped with a teaspoonThe forcemeat is scooped and turned into small ovals with a wetted spoon, then poached — barely trembling water or stock, never a boil, or they break up and toughen. At 12 oz they are a little over a quarter of the garnish by weight.
"Let fall to a glaze"The onions simmer in fish stock until the liquid reduces to a sticky film that coats them. Use pearl or small boiling onions, peeled and blanched first; the blanching is what keeps them from tasting raw and sharp inside once glazed.
The shrimp are the timing riskTwelve ounces of shelled shrimp sautéed in butter with fine herbs and lemon need two to three minutes, no more. If you use raw shrimp, cook them last and dress them immediately.
Truffles and fish glazeSix ounces of small whole truffles rolled in fish glaze and fresh butter is the one element with no honest substitute at a reasonable price. Preserved truffles work; mushroom caps turned and glazed the same way give the dark colour contrast the plate is after, if not the aroma.
ArrangementRanhofer specifies the quenelles in clusters and the truffles and onions in small pyramids, kept as separate groups rather than mixed — the effect depends on seeing red shrimp, pale glazed onions, pink-sauced quenelles and black truffles as distinct blocks. Sauce only the quenelles lightly; the rest of the sauce goes in a boat.
YieldThe four components total 42 oz, about 2 lb 10 oz of garnish, enough to surround a large fish at a formal service. Scale all four components down together or the proportions collapse.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its garnishing section is essentially a catalogue of standard classical assemblies that a brigade could be told to produce by name alone. Cardinal in French kitchen usage is generally said to denote the deep red of a cardinal's robes, obtained here from lobster coral and lobster butter — the same logic that gives us sauce cardinal, and the reason every element of this garnish belongs to the fish course. Garnishes of this kind belong to a long tradition of elaborate garnished platters, in display service as much as in later service à la russe. It is worth reading as a document of labour as much as of taste — four separate preparations, two derived stocks and a sauce, all in support of something that was not the dish itself.