No. 897

Croustades a la Periguex

Croustades a la Perigueux

Cook half a pound of hulled barley in two quarts of beef stock (No. 194a) for three hours, and when well done, and the liquid entirely reduced, then beat it with a spatula to make it attain a body, while adding two ounces of butter, salt, nutmeg and red pepper. Lay some six-sided molds into cold water, take them out one by one, drain and fill with the prepared barley; leave them to cool on the ice, then unmold and bread-crumb them, mark the top with a three-quarter inch pastry cutter, fry them, empty their insides, and fill them with a salpicon composed of truffles cut in small one-eighth inch squares, and small quarter of an inch bead quenelles with a brown Madeira sauce (No. 492). Instead of covering the aperture with its own cover, have one made of a round piece of glazed truffle, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, by one-eighth in thickness. Dress them in a pyramid on a folded napkin.

← No. 896 Croustades a la Parmentier Hot Side Dishes No. 898 Croustades, Carolina Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a barley croustade — a savoury case built from stiff barley porridge rather than pastry — filled with truffle salpicon. Nothing here is difficult, but the barley must be cooked down until it is genuinely stiff or the moulded cases collapse in the fryer.

The hinge: reduce the barley to a pasteHalf a pound of hulled (pot) barley to two quarts of stock over three hours should leave you with a thick, gluey mass with no free liquid at all. Beating it with a spatula develops the starch into something that holds a moulded shape; if it still slumps, keep drying it over low heat before you mould.
Barley"Hulled barley" means barley with only the inedible hull removed, close to what is now sold as pot barley; three hours suits it, though much of that time is also spent reducing two quarts of stock. Pearl barley cooks faster and gives a softer, less resilient paste — usable, but reduce the stock and watch it closely.
StockNo. 194a is Ranhofer's plain beef stock. A good unsalted beef stock or brown veal stock works; use unsalted, since two quarts reducing to nothing concentrates every bit of salt in it.
The mouldsSix-sided dariole or timbale moulds; Ranhofer gives no size, so use small ones. Dipping them in cold water and draining is the release trick — it works, but a film of butter is more reliable with modern non-stick or stainless moulds. Chill on ice until firm.
Breading and fryingBread-crumb means flour, beaten egg, then fine dry crumbs. Fry at 350–360°F until deep gold, about 3–4 minutes; hotter and the crust colours before the barley inside sets enough to be hollowed out cleanly.
Cutting the lidMark the top with a ¾-inch cutter before frying, then lift out the disc and scoop the soft interior once the case is fried and just cool enough to handle. The scooped barley is worth keeping to thicken a soup.
The fillingNo. 492 is a brown Madeira sauce — a demi-glace finished with Madeira. The quarter-inch "bead" quenelles are forcemeat dumplings piped and poached in barely simmering stock; they are done as soon as they firm. Bind them and the truffle dice with just enough sauce to coat, not to flood.
TrufflesFresh black truffle at these quantities is now a luxury few will match. Preserved truffle peelings, or a mixture of finely diced brown mushrooms cooked dry with a little truffle oil, gives the right colour and texture; the glazed truffle lid can be replaced with a disc of black olive or of mushroom brushed with reduced sauce.
YieldRanhofer gives none. Half a pound of barley should fill roughly a dozen small moulds — a garnish or a hot first course for six or so, stacked as he directs on a folded napkin.

A Little History

Anything à la Périgueux announces truffles: Périgord in southwestern France was, and remains, the centre of the French black truffle trade, and by the nineteenth century the name had hardened into kitchen shorthand for a Madeira-based brown sauce with truffle. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete cross-referenced system, which is why this entry sends you off to numbered stock and sauce recipes rather than repeating them. The croustade itself shows the period's fondness for edible containers — cases of fried bread, pastry, rice or, as here, reduced barley, all made to be hollowed and filled. The barley is the interesting part: a cheap grain porridge, dried to a paste, moulded, breaded and fried until it can pass as a pastry shell, then loaded with the most expensive garnish in the kitchen. The pyramid on a folded napkin was standard service for fried items of this kind, the linen absorbing fat and holding the stack steady on the way to the table.