No. 665

Duchess Garnishing

Garniture Duchesse

Lay on the table a quarter of a pound of flour; two ounces of parmesan, and two ounces of Chester cheese, both finely grated; a grain of salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper; dilute with a little water and one egg so as to obtain a smooth and firm paste. Roll this out on the floured table to one-eighth of an inch in thickness; cut it into inch and a half diameter round pieces, and lay these on buttered sheets; cook in a hot oven, not having them brown. Beat up some fresh butter in a bowl; mix in with it double its quantity of grated Chester cheese, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Lay the round pieces of cooked paste two by two, one on top of the other, after spreading them all thickly with the cheese preparation; range them once more on the sheet, and heat for a few minutes in a moderate oven, then dress on a napkin or around the remove.

← No. 664 Dolphettes of Tenderloins of Beef Garnishing Garnishings No. 666 Fermiere Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cheese paste baked into thin wafers, sandwiched with a cheese butter and warmed through — closer to a savoury petit four than to a garnish in the modern sense. The whole thing hinges on the dough being rolled thin and baked pale.

Weights in cupsA quarter pound of flour is about 1 cup (115 g); two ounces of grated cheese is roughly 3/4 cup loosely packed of each. The egg and a spoonful or two of water are all the liquid required — add the water by teaspoons, since flour hydration varies.
Chester cheese"Chester" is the nineteenth-century French name for English Cheshire, a firm, crumbly, slightly salty cow's-milk cheese. Cheshire is still made; a dry, sharp white Cheddar or a Lancashire is the nearest substitute if you cannot find it.
A grain of saltRead literally — the cheeses are salty and Ranhofer means the barest pinch. Salt the dough lightly and taste the cheese butter before deciding it needs more.
Hot oven, no colourThe instruction pulls two ways: a hot oven, but no browning. Something around 400F (200C) will serve if you watch the sheet closely and pull the wafers as soon as they are set and dry, before any colour takes — only a few minutes at an eighth of an inch. Browned cheese paste tastes harsh and goes hard.
Moderate oven for the reheat350F (175C), and only long enough to soften the filling — three or four minutes. Any longer and the butter runs out of the sandwiches.
The cheese butterDouble the butter's quantity in grated cheese makes a stiff paste, not a spread. Have the butter genuinely soft and beat hard, or work it in a food processor; a cold mixture will tear the fragile wafers as you spread it.
YieldA quarter pound of flour rolled this thin gives several dozen rounds of an inch and a half, depending on how much scrap you re-roll, hence a good number of finished sandwiches — enough to ring a large joint or fill a napkin-lined plate.
Dressing on the napkinA "remove" (relevé) was a dish brought on to replace an earlier course at a formal dinner, generally following the fish; the wafers were arranged around that platter or piled on a folded napkin as a separate service. Serve warm, not hot, and soon after they leave the oven.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its garnish chapter draws heavily on the classical French repertoire as it was practised in an American kitchen. Names like duchesse, fermière and financière were codified labels rather than descriptions: a cook reading a menu knew what accompaniments each implied. Duchesse is most often attached today to piped potato enriched with egg yolk, but the term was applied to several preparations in the period, and here it covers a cheese wafer. The use of Cheshire — anglicised on French menus as "Chester" — alongside Parmesan reflects the imported hard cheeses a well-supplied New York restaurant could rely on in the 1890s.