No. 925

Palmettes of Fat Livers Delmontes

Palmettes de Foies-Gras a la Delmontes

Pound well together half a pound of game quenelle forcemeat (No.91), a quarter of a pound of foies-gras, and half a pound of cream forcemeat (No.75). Butter some palmette molds, fill them with this preparation, poach, unmold, then bread-crumb, and fry them nicely; dress them on folded napkins, garnish each one with a favor frill (No.10) and serve with a separate sauce-boat of sherry or Madeira sauce (No.492), with truffles and lean ham, both cut in eighth of an inch squares, added.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has the forcemeats, the sauce and the frills standing by, so the entry reads as an assembly note rather than a full recipe. The unstated cross-references are where the work actually lies.

What the numbers meanNo. 91 is a game quenelle forcemeat, No. 75 a cream forcemeat, No. 492 the sherry or Madeira sauce, No. 10 a frill. The page gives nothing beyond the numbers, so the three forcemeat and sauce cross-references have to be made up before this entry can be started: the dish is three preparations bound together with foie gras.
ProportionsHalf a pound game forcemeat, a quarter pound foie gras, half a pound cream forcemeat gives about 1 lb 4 oz of mixture: roughly 8 to 10 small palmettes, enough for a side dish for six to eight at a long service dinner.
PoundingThe original assumes a marble mortar and a good deal of arm. A food processor does it in seconds, but the mixture must stay cold or the cream forcemeat breaks. Chill the bowl, work in short pulses, and pass the result through a drum sieve if you want the texture Ranhofer expected.
Palmette moldsSmall decorative molds, the name suggesting a fan or palm-leaf shape. Any small barquette, boat or fluted mold will serve; butter them well and cold, since the poached forcemeat has to release cleanly.
PoachingSet the filled molds in a shallow pan, add hot water to two-thirds their depth, cover with buttered paper and hold the water at a bare shiver, around 175F. It must never boil: boiling water curdles the cream forcemeat and the palmettes turn spongy and weep. Twelve to fifteen minutes for small molds; they are done when firm to a fingertip.
Chill before breadingUnmold, cool, and refrigerate until quite firm before you flour, egg and crumb them. Warm forcemeat will not hold a coating. Fry at 350F for two to three minutes, only to colour the crust; the interior is already cooked.
The garnishTruffles and lean ham cut in eighth-inch dice are added to the finished sauce, not cooked in it. Cut them small and evenly, since at that size the dice are read as texture rather than as pieces.
Favor frills and napkinsThe paper frill and the folded napkin are Victorian service dress. The napkin absorbed frying fat as much as it looked well; a warmed platter and a folded linen napkin do the same job today, and the frills can be left off without loss.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the suffix a la Delmontes is one of the many house dedications scattered through the book, its exact derivation undocumented. Palmettes belong to the nineteenth-century French repertoire of petites entrees and hot side dishes: small moulded forcemeats, alongside boudins, timbales and quenelles. The technique of poaching a fine forcemeat in a decorative mould and then crumbing and frying it is characteristic of the Careme-descended grande cuisine Ranhofer trained in, where a dish was expected to be built from components already prepared that morning. Foie gras in this period is generally said to have reached American kitchens largely as imported terrines and tinned preparations from Strasbourg and the southwest of France, which would help explain why a quarter pound can be treated here as a seasoning for a pound of forcemeat rather than as the centre of the plate.