No. 951

Rissoles of Fat Livers a la Ude

Rissoles de Foies-Gras a la Ude

Take out the contents of a pound terrine of foies-gras; remove all the grease from the forcemeat, and cut the liver into three-sixteenths inch squares, and put them aside in a very cool place. Pound the forcemeat found around the liver without any of the grease, add to it nine raw egg-yolks, season to taste, and put in with it two tablespoonfuls of chicken glaze (No. 398), and the fat liver cut in pieces. Roll out very thin some fragments of puff paste, having it only an eighth of an inch in thickness; cut with a channeled pastry cutter round pieces, three inches in diameter, and lay in the center of each, an inch and a quarter sized ball. Moisten around with a brush slightly wetted with cold water, fold them over, fasten well the edges so that the interior is hermetically enclosed, then dip them in beaten eggs and bread-crumbs, and fry them in hot fat for a sufficient length of time, to allow the paste to cook properly; dress them on a dish over a folded napkin.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional larder and a cook who already knows how rissoles behave. Two things decide whether these work: the temperature of the filling when it goes into the paste, and the seal on the edges.

Keep the filling cold, and lead with thatFoie gras begins to render at very low heat, and a warm filling will melt inside the crust, blow the seam and empty itself into the fryer. Chill the shaped balls until firm, wrap and seal them cold, and chill the finished rissoles again before frying.
"A pound terrine of foies-gras"A whole-lobe terrine of about 450 g, the kind with a seam of fat around the outside. A modern mousse or pâté de foie gras will not give you the two distinct components the recipe wants — firm liver to dice, softer forcemeat to pound. Some of the weight is fat that the recipe tells you to discard, so the usable yield will be appreciably less than a pound.
Chicken glaze (No. 398)Glace de volaille: white chicken stock reduced until it sets to a sticky, rubbery jelly at room temperature. Two tablespoons is a seasoning and a binder, not a liquid. A commercial glace de volaille or a heavily reduced unsalted stock works; bouillon cubes bring too much salt for a dish already seasoned by the terrine.
Nine egg yolksThat is a professional proportion for a filling that must set solid when hot, and by modern eyes it is a great deal of yolk for under a pound of forcemeat. Six will bind adequately if your terrine is on the soft side; taste and check the seasoning before you commit, since the salt level of terrines varies widely.
Puff paste at an eighth of an inchThinner than most people roll puff pastry. He calls for scraps ("fragments"), and rerolled trimmings puff less, which suits a fried turnover. A fluted 3-inch cutter and a 1¼-inch ball of filling; the recipe gives no yield, so count your rounds against the filling you actually have.
SealingWater on the brush, not egg wash, then press the edges firmly with fingertips before crimping. Any gap and the fat escapes. The subsequent egg-and-crumb coat is a second seal as much as a coating.
FryingRanhofer says only "hot fat" and "a sufficient length of time, to allow the paste to cook properly." In modern terms around 350-360F suits: hotter and the crumb colors before the pastry inside has cooked through; cooler and the paste absorbs fat. Allow four to five minutes for rissoles this size, and make sure the interior is piping hot throughout, not merely warm — the filling carries raw yolk.
ServingStraight from the fat onto a folded napkin, as the recipe directs; the napkin absorbs drips, and it is a presentation The Epicurean uses repeatedly for fried dishes. Ranhofer places them among the hot side dishes and gives no portion count.

A Little History

Rissole is an old word — generally traced to Old French roissole and ultimately to a Latin root meaning reddish, for the color of something fried brown — and by the nineteenth century it meant any small parcel of forcemeat in pastry, fried rather than baked. The dedication is to Louis Eustache Ude, the French chef who cooked in England for the Earl of Sefton and later ran the kitchen at Crockford's club, and whose The French Cook (1813) was among the books that carried grande cuisine into the English-speaking world. Charles Ranhofer, writing The Epicurean in 1894 after decades at Delmonico's in New York, was cataloguing that inheritance as much as his own repertoire, and naming a dish for a predecessor was the ordinary way of crediting a formula. That a New York restaurant could call for a pound terrine of foie gras as a starting point, and then use it inside something deep-fried, says a good deal about the scale and confidence of the kitchen he ran.