Perier Palmettes

A Ranhofer construction rather than a dish in the ordinary sense: two forcemeats, a shellfish filling, a fried crust, a moulded dome and a sauce, assembled into a palm-leaf shape. Almost everything in it is a cross-reference to another number in The Epicurean, so the work is in the components.

• What a palmette isA palmette is a flat palm-leaf or fan shape, cut with a tin cutter or shaped by hand from the forcemeat and widening at one end. Nothing about the flavour depends on it; a plain oval or rectangle gives the same result if you have no cutter.
• The two forcemeatsPike quenelle forcemeat is pounded pike bound and enriched into a poachable paste; chicken cream forcemeat is pounded raw chicken worked with cream. The exact formulas are Ranhofer's Nos. 90 and 75 and should be read there. Mixed half and half you get something firm enough to hold a shape but light enough to poach. Keep everything ice-cold and the cream will not break.
• SalpiconA salpicon is simply a dice — here cooked shrimp cut small and bound with béchamel enriched with butter. Make it stiff and chill it hard before it goes into the centre, or it will run out during poaching and frying.
• Poaching temperatureForcemeat is poached in water or stock held below a boil. Boiling makes the quenelle mixture swell, weep butter and turn spongy. Poach only until just set through; the original gives no time or temperature.
• Breading and fryingChill the poached palmettes thoroughly before crumbing, or the coating will not adhere. Clarified butter is specified because whole butter's milk solids burn at frying heat; ghee behaves the same way, and a neutral oil with a spoonful of butter is a reasonable substitute.
• The dome mouldsAn inch and a quarter across means small dome or half-sphere moulds holding only a spoonful or so each. Butter them, press thin truffle cut-outs against the sides so the pattern shows when unmoulded, then fill with the chicken forcemeat and poach gently.
• TrufflesRanhofer means French black truffle, fresh or preserved, used as a decorative element as much as a flavouring. Preserved truffle peelings will give the pattern; truffle oil will not, and does not belong here.
• Favor frillA paper frill (No. 10), used for presentation. It is not eaten and can be left off entirely without loss.
• The sauceButtered half-glaze is demi-glace finished off the heat with cold butter, then studded with chopped mushroom and truffle. Do not let it boil once the butter is in or it will separate.
• YieldThe original gives none. Figure one palmette with its dome per person as a hot side dish within a longer menu, and count on making the forcemeats a day ahead.