No. 915

Robertson Ham Mousseline

Mousseline de Jambon a la Robertson

Chop up finely or grate a quarter of a pound of lean ham; put it into a saucepan with half a pint of tomato puree (No. 730), and half a pint of bechamel (No. 409), strain through a fine sieve and let get cold. Pound in a mortar one pound of chicken fillets after passing them twice through the machine (Fig. 47); mix in with this two egg-whites, and the above prepared sauce, press through a fine sieve, and stir in four tablespoonfuls of cream forcemeat (No. 63), and the value of one quart of whipped cream. Fill some molds (No. 2, Fig. 138) previously decorated with truffles as shown in the plate with this preparation, and finish them the same as for the cardinal (No. 910), and send to the table with a separate sauce-boat of half-glaze sauce (No. 413), with ham added.

← No. 914 Richmond Mousseline Hot Side Dishes No. 916 Mousseline a la Walesky →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a chicken mousseline forcemeat tinted and flavoured with ham and tomato, poached in decorated molds. Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has the numbered sauces standing by, so the work is mostly in assembling equivalents and keeping everything cold.

The hinge: temperatureA mousseline is an emulsion of lean protein, egg white and cream, and it breaks if it warms. Chill the chicken, the bowl, the blade and the cream, and return the mixture to the refrigerator between stages. The ham-tomato-bechamel base must be fully cold before it meets the chicken, as the recipe insists.
MeasuresHalf a pint is one cup, both for the tomato puree and for the bechamel. A quarter pound of lean ham is 4 oz, best grated on a coarse grater or pulsed to a dust rather than chopped.
"The value of one quart of whipped cream"Most likely a quart's bulk of cream already whipped, which would come from about 2 cups of heavy cream at soft peaks, though the phrase could also be read as a quart of cream before whipping. Fold it in by hand in two or three additions; the machine will deflate it.
The machine, Fig. 47A grinding machine of the period, used here to pass the fillets twice before pounding. A food processor does the same work: grind the raw chicken fillets cold, add the egg whites, then the cold sauce base, then push the paste through a fine sieve with a plastic scraper. That sieving is not optional if you want the texture the plate shows.
Cross-referenced componentsNo. 409 bechamel is a standard milk-based white sauce; keep it on the thick side so it does not slacken the mousseline. No. 63 cream forcemeat is a pounded cream forcemeat of the quenelle type; four tablespoons of any well-made chicken quenelle forcemeat serves. No. 413 half-glaze is demi-glace, with ham added as the recipe directs.
Molds and cookingButter small dariole or timbale molds, line the bottoms with truffle cut-outs, fill to just below the rim and cover with buttered paper. The recipe refers you to No. 910 for the finishing; in practice that means poaching in a bain-marie with the water held below a simmer, since boiling water gives a spongy, weeping mousseline. Small molds take roughly 20 to 25 minutes and are done when set and springy in the centre; take the centre to 165F. Rest a few minutes before unmolding.
YieldThe quantities as written (a pound of chicken, a pint of sauce, a quart of whipped cream) make a large batch, well over 2 lb of finished mixture and enough for a dozen or more individual molds; halve or quarter it for a domestic service.
TrufflesRanhofer means black winter truffle, sliced and cut with small cutters for the pattern. Tinned truffle peelings will read on the plate at a fraction of the cost; the decoration is visual, not a flavour element.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that kitchen, thousands of numbered recipes cross-referring to one another like a technical manual. The mousseline belongs to the late-nineteenth-century French repertoire of pounded forcemeats: the same paste that makes a quenelle, lightened with whipped cream until it sets to something closer to a savoury custard than a dumpling. Dozens of them appear in this section under different garnishes and names, and the personal names attached to them, Robertson, Richmond, Walesky, Cardinal, generally reflect either the flavouring and colour of the sauce or a patron of the restaurant rather than any documented origin. Here the ham and tomato do double duty, giving both the flavour and the pale rose colour that made these dishes worth the elaborate truffle-lined molds.