No. 672

Godard Garnishing

Garniture a la Godard

Make twelve quenelles, in an entremet spoon (No. 155), decorate richly. Twelve small sweetbreads larded and glazed, the throat sweetbreads if possible. Twelve large cock's-combs, and twelve cock's-kidneys. Twelve pieces of escalops of foies-gras, cut half heart shaped; twelve fluted mushrooms (No. 118) and twelve medium whole truffles, all rolled in a little half-glaze sauce (No. 413). Six very small squabs may be added if desired, but it is apt to make the garnishing too large. Dress around the dish in clusters, serve a half-glaze sauce (No. 413), separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is not a dish but a garnish: a set of twelve-each components arranged around a large braised joint or poultry piece, in the grand service style of the late nineteenth century. Ranhofer assumes you have the rest of the book at hand, so the cross-references need unpacking.

Read it as a component listNothing here is the main course. Garniture a la Godard was used to dress large braised joints and poultry, such as a saddle of veal or a poularde. The recipe calls for twelve of each item; it does not say how many the dish serves.
Entremet spoon quenellesAn entremet spoon is a dessert spoon, roughly two teaspoons in volume. The quenelle forcemeat is shaped between two of them into a three-sided oval and poached in barely trembling salted water or stock; if the water boils, the quenelles break up.
Half-glaze sauceRanhofer's No. 413 is demi-glace: brown stock reduced with espagnole. Any good reduced brown sauce serves. Rolling the mushrooms and truffles in a little of it is what gives the garnish its gloss.
Throat sweetbreadsRanhofer asks for the throat sweetbreads if possible. The throat sweetbread is the elongated neck portion of the thymus; the rounder heart sweetbread is the other part of the same gland, while the pancreas is the stomach or belly sweetbread. All need soaking in several changes of cold water, blanching, then pressing under a weight before they can be larded and glazed.
Cock's-combs and cock's-kidneysCombs are the fleshy crest, soaked, rubbed to remove the outer skin, then simmered white in a blanc; "cock's-kidneys" in this period means the testicles, not the kidneys. Neither is sold at a supermarket, and both would have to be ordered from a poultry butcher who processes whole birds. They are the most easily omitted elements.
Foies-gras escalopsCut from a chilled lobe of cooked foie gras terrine, half-heart shaped, and warmed only in the residual heat of the sauce. Raw foie gras seared to order will render away and lose the shape the garnish depends on.
Fluted mushroomsNo. 118 is the tourne, a spiral of shallow channels cut into the cap with the tip of a paring knife. It needs firm, tightly closed white caps and a fair amount of practice; plain trimmed caps cooked a la blanc in lemon water look tidy enough.
SquabsSquab is a young domestic pigeon, still sold by game butchers. Ranhofer's own warning stands: six added birds overwhelm the platter and push the garnish past the point where it reads as a border.
Dressing and serviceCluster like with like around the joint rather than alternating items, so each group reads as a distinct color and shape. The demi-glace goes to the table in a sauceboat, not over the garnish, which would dull the glazes.

A Little History

Garniture Godard belongs to the classical French repertoire of named garnishes that Charles Ranhofer brought to Delmonico's and catalogued in The Epicurean (1894); it appears with much the same components in Escoffier's later codification, usually paired with a sauce Godard. The name is generally traced to a person rather than a place, though the identity of the Godard in question is not securely documented, and nineteenth-century sources repeat the attribution without evidence. What the list really records is the range of a large professional kitchen: cockscombs, cock's-kidneys, sweetbreads and truffles, assembled into visible expense on the platter. The instruction to arrange the parts in clusters was part of that display, the border composed so that it reached the dining room intact.