No. 913

Marechale Mousseline

Mousseline a la Marechale

Decorate mousseline molds (No. 2, Fig. 138) with truffles and tongue, as in the accompanying design (Fig. 225),garnish them with a poultry mousseline forcemeat (No. 86), made with turkey, and finish exactly the same as for the cardinal (No. 910), serve separately a well buttered allemande sauce (No. 407), with finely minced oronges or mushrooms added.

← No. 912 Isabella Mousseline Hot Side Dishes No. 914 Richmond Mousseline →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is one entry in a long chain of cross-references, typical of The Epicurean: the actual technique lives in the numbered forcemeat and sauce recipes, and this page only supplies the decoration and the flavouring. Assembling it means reconstructing three or four other numbers.

The hinge: never let the water boilMousseline forcemeat is a cream-and-egg-white emulsion, and it sets like a delicate custard. Ranhofer gives no temperature here, only 'finish exactly the same as for the cardinal (No. 910)'; the molds are poached in a water bath held well below a boil, since a boil breaks the cream out of suspension and leaves the mousselines grainy and weeping.
What a mousseline forcemeat isRanhofer's No. 86 is raw poultry meat pounded and sieved smooth, seasoned, then worked over ice with egg white and heavy cream. Modern practice does the same thing in a food processor, keeping everything cold; a workable ratio is about 1 lb turkey breast to 1 egg white and 1 to 1 1/2 cups cream, tested by poaching a spoonful before the molds are filled.
Mousseline moldsThe book points to its own No. 2, Fig. 138 rather than describing them; they are small individual molds of the dariole or timbale type. Line them cold so that the truffle and tongue cut-outs stay in place while the forcemeat goes in.
The decorationThe truffle and pickled tongue are cut into thin shapes and pressed against the inside of the mold, so they appear on the outside once turned out. Chilling the lined molds until they are firm before filling is a practical step the book leaves unstated.
Allemande sauceNo. 407 is a velouté finished with an egg-yolk and cream liaison, then "well buttered" off the heat. Once the yolks are in it must not simmer again or it will curdle; hold it below 180F and mount the butter at the last moment.
OrongesThe oronge is Amanita caesarea, Caesar's mushroom, prized in France and Italy and rarely found in commerce outside its short season there. It belongs to a genus that includes deadly species, so wild substitution is not worth attempting; the recipe already offers cultivated mushrooms as the alternative, and finely minced button or cremini mushrooms sweated in butter do the job.
Turkey rather than chickenRanhofer specifies turkey for this variation, and it matters: turkey breast is leaner and firmer than chicken, so the cream must be pushed toward the upper end of the ratio to keep the texture light.
Yield and serviceFigure two small molds per person as a hot side dish, or one as a first course in a modern meal. Turn them out onto a warm plate, decoration upward, and send the sauce separately as directed rather than pooling it over the truffle work.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summary of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this stretch of the book is essentially a catalogue: a single forcemeat and poaching method repeated under a dozen names that differ only in the meat, the decorative cut-outs and the sauce. In classical French kitchen usage à la maréchale more often denotes something breaded and fried, frequently garnished with truffle and asparagus, so here the term functions as a house label for a particular mold pattern rather than a description of the cooking. The mousseline itself belongs to the high period of decorative garde-manger work, when pounding meat through a sieve by hand and lining chilled molds with truffle shapes was a normal use of kitchen labour. The oronge in the sauce is a small marker of the book's audience: an expensive wild mushroom of the French and Italian markets, offered without explanation to readers assumed to know it.