For the Modern Kitchen
Do not make this as written.
Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows the house forcemeat, the house sauce and the house frying station, so almost everything here is a cross-reference. Unpacked, it is a game mousseline poached in small molds, then chilled, breaded and fried, and served in a ring with tomato sauce.
- The mousseline itselfA game mousseline forcemeat is lean raw meat pounded and sieved (a food processor does it), seasoned, bound with egg white and let down with heavy cream: roughly 1 lb boneless guinea fowl and duck breast, 1 to 2 egg whites, and about 1 to 1 1/2 cups cream. Everything must stay refrigerator-cold or the emulsion breaks and weeps fat when poached.
- "Cooked fine herbs"Fines herbes here means parsley, chervil, tarragon and chives, chopped fine and sweated in butter until the moisture is gone, then cooled before they go into the farce. Raw herbs release water into the mousseline and streak it.
- Redhead duckRedhead was a market bird in 1894 and is not one now; wild waterfowl cannot legally be sold in the United States, so unless you or a friend shot it in season under license, use farmed duck breast. Domestic duck is fattier and milder than a diving duck, so trim the breast hard and expect a gentler flavor.
- The moldsRanhofer does not describe them; the name implies a small palm-leaf or fan-shaped form. Any small oval, barquette or dariole mold of about 2 fl oz works; butter them and film with plastic or parchment for easy unmolding.
- PoachingPoach in a water bath that stays at about 170F, never simmering, until the centers read 150 to 155F, roughly 12 to 18 minutes for 2 oz molds. Boiling water curdles a mousseline into something grainy.
- Chill before breadingThe recipe assumes it: unmold, cool thoroughly, then flour, egg and crumb. A warm mousseline will not hold its edges in the fryer. Fry at 350 to 360F only until the crumb is gold, about 2 minutes; the interior is already cooked.
- The sauceRanhofer's Parisian tomato sauce is given elsewhere (No. 550) and is not described on this page beyond being strained through a very fine sieve; any well-reduced tomato sauce pressed through a fine chinois will serve the same purpose. The recipe says 'serve separately', so it goes in a sauceboat, not under the palmettes, and the crust stays crisp.
- Favor frillsPaper frills (No. 10), purely decorative. Skip them without loss.
- YieldAbout 12 small palmettes from a pound of meat, enough for 6 to 8 as a hot side dish in the nineteenth-century sense, or 4 as a modern first course.
A Little HistoryThis comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the encyclopedic record of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where "hot side dishes" meant the small hot entrées that traveled the table between larger courses. Palmette is a shape name borrowed from architectural ornament, the stylized fan of palm leaves, and it describes the mold rather than the mixture; Ranhofer runs a whole series of them, from fat livers to ham, all built on the same poach-crumb-fry method. The redhead duck is the period detail worth pausing on: along with canvasback, it was a celebrated American market bird, shot commercially on the Chesapeake and shipped to city restaurants by the barrel. That trade was ended by the Lacey Act of 1900 and finally by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which is why a dish Ranhofer could order from a supplier now depends on a hunting license. Names like "à la Paladio" in this book are usually house designations, sometimes honoring a patron or simply distinguishing one garnish from another, and no documented origin attaches to this one.