No. 919

Mousseline of Young Rabbit

Mousseline de Lapereau

Pound three-quarters of a pound of the fillet meat taken from a raw young rabbit, rub it through a sieve, and return it to the mortar to mix in six egg-yolks, one by one, and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter divided in pieces. Put this preparation into a thin iron vessel and heat it up for ten minutes incorporating into it slowly a quart and a half in volume of unsweetened whipped cream. Butter and decorate the mousseline molds (No. 2, Fig. 138) with truffles; fill them with the preparation and poach in a bain-marie in a very slack oven. After removing the mousseline from the oven, let it rest two minutes before unmolding on a hot dish containing a little consommé (No. 189). Serve separately some good veloute sauce (No. 415), reduced with the fumet of young rabbit (No. 397).

← No. 918 Woodcock Mousseline Hot Side Dishes No. 920 Palmettes →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic mousseline forcemeat from Ranhofer's Delmonico kitchen, written for a brigade with a marble mortar and a coal range. The technique survives intact; only the equipment and the oven language need translating.

The hinge: keep everything coldA mousseline holds together because cold pur ied protein emulsifies cold cream. Chill the rabbit, the butter, the bowl and the cream, and work quickly. Ranhofer's ten minutes of heating before the cream goes in is the one step that most easily wrecks the mixture; if you follow it, use the gentlest possible heat and stir constantly, since yolks begin to set from roughly 150F and the emulsion will break.
Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding in under a minute. Purée the raw fillet meat alone first, then add the yolks one at a time and the butter in pieces, then press the mixture through a fine drum sieve or tamis to catch sinew. Fold the whipped cream in by hand off the machine.
"A quart and a half in volume of whipped cream"This means the whipped volume, not the liquid measure, so roughly 3 cups of heavy cream before whipping. Even so it is a very generous ratio against 12 oz of meat; modern mousseline practice runs closer to equal weights of meat and cream. Add the cream gradually and stop when the mixture will just hold a soft shape on a spoon.
"A very slack oven"250 to 275F. The molds sit in a water bath filled to two-thirds their depth, and the water should never simmer -- a shiver at the surface is right. Small molds take 20 to 30 minutes; the mousseline is done when the centre reaches about 165F and springs back to a light press.
"A thin iron vessel"A thin-walled pan, chosen for responsiveness rather than heat retention. Modern equivalent is a stainless saucepan or a bowl over barely warm water, and honestly the step can be skipped: fold the cream into the cold purée and go straight to the molds.
Truffle decorationThin truffle rounds pressed against the buttered mold walls before filling, so they show through as a pattern when unmolded. Blanched leek green, black olive or dried mushroom slices do the same visual job at a hundredth of the cost.
The accompanimentsVelouté reduced with rabbit fumet means a light stock-based sauce sharpened with the reduced bones and trimmings of the rabbit. Roast the bones, simmer them into a concentrated broth, and reduce that into the sauce. The little consommé on the serving dish is a moistening film, not a soup.
YieldThe quantities are large: a quart and a half of whipped cream folded into the pur ie fills well over a dozen individual dariole-sized molds. Halving the cream gives a firmer, more manageable mousseline and closer to modern proportions.

A Little History

Lapereau is specifically a young rabbit, a few months old at most. The mousseline is a nineteenth-century French preparation: a raw pur ie of white meat or fish, bound with egg and butter, lightened with whipped cream and poached gently so it rises like a savoury custard. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades and published The Epicurean in 1894, gives a number of them -- the preceding recipe is a woodcock mousseline -- all built on the same formula and numbered for cross-reference. That a small hot side dish demanded three-quarters of a pound of trimmed fillet, six yolks and a quart and a half of whipped cream says a good deal about the economics of an American luxury restaurant in the Gilded Age.