No. 674

Grimod Garnishing

Garniture a la Grimod

Ten ounces of cooked cock's-combs warmed in a little dry Madeira and half-glaze sauce (No. 413). Twenty ounces of cock's-kidneys poached the same as quenelles, drained and thickened with meat glaze (No. 401) and butter. Twenty ounces of foies-gras quenelles, mixed in and thickened with a half-glaze sauce and Madeira. Arrange all of these in clusters around a remove, and serve separately a Grimod sauce (No. 475).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's garnishings are sub-recipes: they assume you already have the sauces, glazes and forcemeats of The Epicurean on hand, and they assume a kind of butchery that has largely disappeared. Read this as a set of proportions rather than a standalone dish.

What a "remove" isThe relevé or remove was the substantial course that replaced the soup or fish — a large braised or roasted joint, poultry or fish sent up whole. This garnish is arranged in separate mounds around that centrepiece, not stirred into it.
Cock's-combsThe fleshy crest of a rooster, blanched, peeled of its skin while warm, then simmered in white stock until tender. Ranhofer assumes they arrive already cooked. They are not a supermarket item; a specialist poultry butcher or a halal or Chinese market is the realistic source.
Cock's-kidneysThe period term for rooster testicles, not kidneys — small, pale, mild and firm. "Poached the same as quenelles" means barely trembling salted liquid, a few minutes only; they toughen and go grainy if allowed to boil.
The cross-referenced saucesHalf-glaze is demi-glace (No. 413): brown sauce reduced with stock. Meat glaze (No. 401) is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Grimod sauce (No. 475) is served in a boat alongside. Without those three, the garnish has no binding and no seasoning.
Foies-gras quenellesA forcemeat of foie gras bound in the usual quenelle manner with panada and egg, piped in small ovals and poached, then, as here, thickened with Madeira demi-glace; the recipe itself does not spell out the mixture. A chicken-liver forcemeat is sometimes used instead; the texture is close and the cost is not.
Madeira"Dry Madeira" here points to a drier style, Sercial above all (Verdelho is usually reckoned medium-dry), used as a reduction rather than a flavouring poured in at the end. Cooking wine sold as "Madeira" is often salted and will throw the seasoning of an already-reduced glaze.
ScaleFifty ounces of garnish — a little over three pounds — is banquet quantity, enough to ring a large joint for a sizeable table. For a domestic table, divide the weights by four and keep the ratio of 1 part combs to 2 parts kidneys to 2 parts quenelles.
AssemblyEach element is thickened separately and kept hot in its own pan, then spooned in distinct clusters so the three textures stay legible. Combining them in one pan defeats the point of the garnish.

A Little History

The name honours Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière (1758–1837), the Parisian lawyer turned gastronomic critic whose Almanach des Gourmands, issued from 1803, effectively invented restaurant reviewing and the jury tasting. Naming a garnish for him was standard nineteenth-century kitchen practice — Ranhofer's Garnishings chapter is a roll-call of dedicatees, patrons and predecessors — and the composition is characteristic of the high classical repertoire that Charles Ranhofer brought to Delmonico's in New York: cock's-combs and cock's-kidneys were prized precisely because they were fiddly, scarce and unmistakably professional, the by-products of a poultry trade that killed and dressed birds on the premises. Both ingredients appear constantly in Carême and Escoffier and had vanished from most Western kitchens by the mid-twentieth century. (They do still appear in Chinese and Japanese cooking, where combs and testicles are eaten.)