No. 865

Colombines of Chicken Livers with Ham

Colombines de Foies de Volaille au Jambon

Put on to reduce one pint of bechamel sauce (No. 409), incorporating into it one gill of mushroom broth and one spoonful of chicken glaze (No. 398), one ounce of butter, and a little red pepper; take off the fire, and add to it half a pound of chicken livers, and as much cooked ham, both cut in three-sixteenth inch squares. Have a pound of boiled rice that has had a little butter and parmesan stirred into it, and with this line some hollow tartlet molds, leaving an empty space in the middle; fill this in with the above preparation, and cover over with a thin layer of the same rice, then let them get quite cold. Unmold, and lay them first in grated parmesan, then in beaten eggs, and lastly in white bread-crumbs; smooth them nicely with the blade of a knife, plunge them into boiling frying fat, a few at the time, in order that they attain a good color, then drain and range them on folded napkins.

← No. 864 Cocks'-Kidneys Villeroi Hot Side Dishes No. 866 Colombines of Foies-Gras →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A rice-cased croquette from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, built in tartlet molds and fried. Nothing about it is difficult, but it depends entirely on the filling being firm and cold before it meets the fat.

The hinge: chill hardThe assembled molds must be refrigerated until thoroughly set, several hours or overnight. A filling that is merely cool will burst the crumb coating in the fryer and empty itself into the fat.
Cook the livers firstThe recipe specifies "cooked ham" but says nothing about the state of the livers, and they go in off the heat, where the sauce cannot cook them. Sauté the diced livers in butter until just firm and no longer pink at the centre before folding them into the sauce; the brief fry at the end only colours the crust and will not cook raw liver through.
Gill and spoonfulA gill is half a cup. Ranhofer's unqualified "spoonful" is generally read as a tablespoon.
Mushroom broth and chicken glazeMushroom broth is the strained liquor from cooking mushrooms, not stock made of them. Chicken glaze (No. 398) is stock reduced to a syrupy glace; a tablespoon of commercial demi-glace or a spoonful of heavily reduced chicken stock does the same work of seasoning and body.
The béchamel wants to be thickA pint of sauce reduced with the mushroom liquor should end up stiff enough to hold a spoon upright once cold. If it stays loose, reduce further before adding the meat, or the filling will never set.
Rice choiceA short or medium grain rice, cooked soft and stirred with butter and parmesan, will cling to the mold and to itself. Long grain will not bind and the cases will fall apart at unmolding.
FryingRanhofer says only "boiling frying fat"; in modern terms roughly 350–375°F suits. Fry a few at a time as directed, since crowding drops the fat and the crumb absorbs grease before it browns; two to three minutes gives colour without overheating the interior.
YieldHalf a pound each of livers and ham with a pound of rice fills roughly twelve to sixteen tartlet molds of two or three inches, enough for six to eight as a hot side dish.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house's working repertoire set down in numbered, cross-referenced form: sauce No. 409 and glaze No. 398 are pantry items a brigade would already have standing. Colombine in the French kitchen of the period denoted a small cased or crumbed preparation shaped in a mold, and the section on hot side dishes is full of such things — croquettes, cromesquis, timbales — dishes whose point was to convert modest trimmings, here livers and cooked ham, into something that could be sent out in numbers between the heavier courses. The rice casing bound with parmesan is close kin to the Italian arancino, though Ranhofer gives it no such lineage.