No. 934

Patties a l'Andalouse

Bouchees a l'Andalouse

Prepare puff paste bouchees as already explained in the Elementary Methods (No.11). Cook them only shortly before they are needed, so as not to be obliged to heat them over again, and when done, remove the covers and empty out the insides, fill these with a salpicon of cooked, smoked ham, artichoke bottoms, chicken quenelles, and mushrooms, all cut into three-sixteenths of an inch squares, and mingled with Marsala wine sauce (No.492). Dress them pyramidically on a napkin and serve.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A canapé-scale assembly job: hot puff pastry shells filled with a fine dice bound in a brown Marsala sauce. Nearly all the work happens before the shells go in the oven, and the shells are the only thing with a deadline.

BouchéesRound puff-paste cases about 1½ inches across, cut with a plain cutter and marked with a smaller one so the centre lifts off as a lid after baking. Frozen all-butter puff pastry rolled to about ⅛ inch works; commercial vol-au-vent shells are the shortcut.
Oven heatPuff paste needs a hot oven so the layers set before the butter runs out; in modern terms that means roughly 400-425F, though Ranhofer gives no temperature here. Bake to deep gold, then pull the lids and hook out the soft interior while still warm.
"Cook them only shortly before"This is the hinge. Reheated puff paste goes leathery and the filling dries at the edges, so bake the shells while the salpicon is already hot and fill at the last moment.
SalpiconSimply a mixture of cooked ingredients in uniform small dice bound with sauce. Three-sixteenths of an inch is about 5 mm.
Chicken quenellesPoached dumplings of pounded raw chicken forcemeat, in Ranhofer's day sieved and worked over ice; period versions are usually bound with a panada, butter and eggs rather than the modern cream-and-egg-white mousseline. A food processor does the same work; poach small ones in barely simmering stock, cool, then dice.
Artichoke bottomsThe trimmed base of a large globe artichoke, cooked in acidulated water or a blanc. Tinned or frozen artichoke bottoms are an honest substitute; marinated hearts in oil are not, as the vinegar fights the Marsala.
Marsala wine sauceNo. 492 is a wine sauce of the brown-sauce family, on the pattern of espagnole reduced with the wine. A good reduced veal or chicken demi-glace finished with dry Marsala gives much the same result. Keep it thick enough to coat the dice and not run out of the pastry.
Smoked hamA firm dry-cured smoked ham, not wet supermarket sandwich ham, which weeps and turns the salpicon watery. Speck or a country ham dices cleanly.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no quantities; roughly 2 cups of salpicon fills about two dozen small bouchées, enough for eight to twelve as a hot side dish or passed course. "Dress pyramidically on a napkin" means piled on a folded linen napkin on the platter, which absorbs steam and stops the bases going soft.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he wrote during decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it is typical of the book's method: the recipe is a set of cross-references to other numbered recipes rather than a self-contained set of instructions, on the assumption that the reader already has puff paste, quenelle forcemeat and a brown sauce standing ready in a professional kitchen. Bouchées à l'Andalouse is the alternative name given in the book.