No. 695

Olives Plain or Stuffed Garnishing

Garniture d'Olives Simples ou Farcies

Spanish olives are the best for garnishing; select the larges, and stone them with the assistance of a small knife, cutting the meat around in spirals, and then removing the stone. Throw them as quickly as they are done into cold water; heat this up without boiling it; refresh them, and add them to any desired hot sauce, being careful that they do not boil and break.

For Stuffed Olives.—They must be first blanched, and allowed to cool; they can either be stuffed with a plain quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) or with a baking forcemeat (No. 81) mingled with a little raw chicken forcemeat (No. 62), then thrown immediately into a saucepan containing hot broth, and leave them in until the forcemeat is well poached; they are then to be added to any sauce they are required to accompany.

← No. 694 Noisettes of Veal and Lambs' Fries Garnishin Garnishings No. 696 Oronges a la Livournaise Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a garnish preparation rather than a dish in itself: olives pitted in one continuous spiral, either left plain or filled with forcemeat, then dropped into a sauce at the last moment. Two things decide whether it works — the spiral cut and keeping the olives below a boil.

The hinge: never let them boilBrine-cured olives that boil split along the spiral cut and unravel, and stuffed ones shed their forcemeat into the sauce. Hold the water and the broth well below a boil, at a bare quiver, and add the finished olives to hot sauce off the heat.
"Spanish olives" and sizeRanhofer most likely means large green Spanish brine olives, the Sevillano or Queen types still sold as "Spanish Queen." Buy them whole and unpitted; commercially pitted olives are drilled straight through and will not hold a filling neatly.
Cutting the spiralWith a small sharp paring knife, cut in at the stem end and turn the olive against the blade so the flesh comes away as one continuous ribbon, leaving the pit bare. The ribbon is then rewound into a hollow cylinder. A cherry pitter defeats the purpose.
"Heat this up without boiling it; refresh them"This is a de-salting step, not cooking. Cover the cut olives in cold water, bring it to just short of a simmer, then drain and plunge into fresh cold water. Repeat once if the olives are very salty.
Blanched, for the stuffed version"Blanched" here means the same hot-water-then-cold treatment, done before filling so the olive is pliable and the forcemeat is not competing with raw brine.
The forcemeat cross-referencesNo. 89 is a plain quenelle forcemeat, No. 81 a baking forcemeat and No. 62 a raw chicken forcemeat, all made up elsewhere in the book. Any fine, well-seasoned mousseline or pate a choux-based quenelle mixture from a modern book stands in. Pipe it in with a small plain tube.
Poaching the stuffing through"Until the forcemeat is well poached" is not a time. With chicken or veal forcemeat, poach in broth held below a simmer until the centre reaches 165F. Test one by cutting it open.
Yield and useA few olives per plate is plenty; the recipe leaves them to be added to whatever sauce they are required to accompany, where the salt cuts a rich brown sauce. Stuff them the same day and keep in warm broth rather than reheating.

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 section is essentially a catalogue of parts to be assembled into named dishes — hence the numbered cross-references to forcemeats made elsewhere in the book. Spiral-pitting an olive so the flesh can be reassembled around a filling is a piece of classical French garde-manger work, and olive-garnished dishes such as canard aux olives and langue de bœuf aux olives belonged to nineteenth-century French cookery. Green Spanish olives, shipped in barrels of brine, were a familiar imported item on American tables by the 1880s, sold loose from the barrel by grocers; the salt-heavy cure is why the olives are put through water before they are sauced.