No. 909

Kulibiac Smolenska

Coulibiac a la Smolenska

Fry a chopped shallot in butter without letting it attain a color, add a quarter of a pound of raw mushrooms cut in quarter inch squares, and when the moisture has evaporated, add carrots, turnips, and celery roots, all blanched and fried in butter, also some cabbage; season with salt, black and red pepper, and moisten with some remoistening (No. 189), then let cook slowly in such a way that the moisture becomes thoroughly reduced when the vegetables are done; thicken it with half veloute (No. 415), and half espagnole (No. 414), and set it aside to get cold. Roll out some foundation paste (No. 135), to an eighth of an inch in thickness; cut from this round pieces three and a half inches in diameter, and fill the centers with the above preparation, shaping it into one and a half inch balls, wet the edges of the paste, and raise them up to join the opposite corners, pinch them well together to make them fasten, and range on a baking sheet; egg over the surfaces, and let them cook in a hot oven; serve on folded napkins.

← No. 908 Kulibiac, Russian Hot Side Dishes No. 910 Cardinal Mousseline →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stocks and mother sauces already on the stove, so most of the work here is in the cross-references. Made in a home kitchen, this is a vegetable turnover: cook the filling down until it is nearly dry, chill it hard, then wrap.

The hinge: a dry, cold fillingWet filling will burst the paste and steam it from the inside. Reduce the braise until a spoon dragged through the pan leaves a clear track, then spread it on a plate and refrigerate until firm before you shape the balls.
The cross-referenced saucesNo. 415 velouté is a white stock thickened with a butter-flour roux; No. 414 espagnole is a brown stock thickened with a brown roux, with mirepoix and tomato. Ranhofer gives no quantity; about half a cup of the two combined should be ample for a quarter pound of mushrooms and the vegetables. A few tablespoons of well-reduced brown stock, or a dark roux-thickened gravy, does the same job of binding.
"Remoistening" (No. 189)Ranhofer's term for the liquid used to moisten a braise, a light stock. Use chicken or vegetable stock and add only enough to keep the vegetables from catching.
Foundation paste (No. 135)Ranhofer's lining paste, close to a modern pie dough. Roll to 1/8 inch and cut 3 1/2-inch rounds; a chilled pie dough or all-butter puff both work, though puff will not pinch shut as reliably.
Oven temperatureRanhofer gives no temperatures, only "a hot oven"; in modern terms that is usually taken as roughly 425–450F. Bake on a parchment-lined sheet until the paste is set and deep gold, roughly 20–25 minutes; the filling is already cooked, so you are only baking the pastry.
Vegetable cut and prepCut everything to the mushrooms' quarter-inch dice so it cooks evenly. Celery root replaces the "celery roots"; blanch carrot, turnip and celery root two or three minutes each before frying, and shred the cabbage fine so it collapses rather than pierces the dough.
Unspecified quantitiesOnly the mushrooms are measured. Roughly equal volumes of carrot, turnip, celery root and cabbage — about half a cup diced each — will fill a dozen rounds; adjust rather than trying to reverse-engineer a fixed amount.
Sealing and yieldBrush the rim with water or egg wash, gather the edges to a purse over a 1 1/2-inch ball of filling, and pinch firmly; any gap will leak. Expect about 12 turnovers from that quantity, served four to six as a hot side or first course.
"Serve on folded napkins"A period service convention: a linen napkin folded on the platter absorbs steam and keeps the pastry from sweating. A wire rack does the same thing if you are not dressing the table.

A Little History

Coulibiac — kulebyaka in Russian — is a Russian raised pie, usually a long loaf of dough enclosing fish or cabbage with buckwheat or rice and hard-boiled egg, and it entered the French repertoire in the nineteenth century through chefs with Russian connections; Carême, who spent a brief period in St. Petersburg, is the name usually attached to the transfer, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. What Ranhofer gives here under the same name is the small-format version, a hand-sized pastry with a cabbage-and-root-vegetable filling rather than the sturgeon or salmon of the grand kulebyaka; the garnish name Smolenska points to Smolensk, in the west of European Russia, a region also attached in period cookery to buckwheat groats sold as "Smolensk grits." Its place in the Hot Side Dishes chapter of Ranhofer's 1894 The Epicurean reflects the à la russe fashion that ran through Delmonico's menus, where Russian and Polish names lent variety, and the fact that a kitchen already making velouté and espagnole daily could turn out a filling like this from what the larder had.