No. 962

Timbales a la Calaisienne

Prepare the timbales the same as for a la Benton (No. 961). Have a garnishing of either poached oysters or mussels, or else of both, and crawfish, or shrimps cooked and shelled. Cut the mussels into five-eighths of an inch squares, and the crawfish or shrimps into quarter of an inch pieces; reduce a normande sauce (No. 509), with the oyster juice or some mushroom broth, and add to it a little fish glaze (No. 399); put the garnishing and sauce together, heat will, and fill the timbales with it. Place on top a cover composed of three rolled out layers of puff paste, each one-eighth of an inch in thickness, the bottom one measuring an inch and a half across, the next one an inch and a quarter, and the top one three-quarters of an inch.

← No. 961 Timbales a la Benton Hot Side Dishes No. 963 Timbales a la Chevaliere →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has the fish velouté, the glaze and the pastry cases standing by, so the recipe is really an assembly note. The work is in the components he cross-references rather than in the dish itself.

What a timbale is hereNot the baked custard of later French cooking, but a small pastry case, baked and then filled; the puff-paste lid confirms as much. No. 961 supplies the case, and the present text does not describe how it is made.
Normande sauce, in shortA fish velouté finished with cream and egg yolks and flavoured with oyster or mussel liquor and mushroom cooking liquid. Once the yolks are in, keep it below a simmer or it will curdle and break in the timbale.
Fish glazeNo. 399 is fish stock reduced to a syrupy glace. A teaspoon or so per cup of sauce is enough; it is there for depth and gloss, not for salinity. Commercial fish or shellfish glace works, but taste before salting since most are already salty.
Cook the shellfish barelyPoach oysters only until the edges ruffle, well under a minute, and steam mussels just until they open. Both will be heated again in the sauce, and anything longer than that gives you rubber.
Crawfish and shrimpRanhofer means whole live crawfish boiled and picked, which is a real job for a garnish; peeled cooked shrimp cut to quarter-inch dice is the practical substitute. Keep the mussel dice at the larger five-eighths of an inch as written, so the two read differently on the spoon.
Save the liquorThe oyster juice is the reducing liquid for the sauce, so strain it through a cloth as you shuck rather than pouring it away. Mussel liquor works the same way; let it settle and leave the grit behind.
The lidThree graduated discs of puff paste, an inch and a half, an inch and a quarter, and three-quarters of an inch, each an eighth of an inch thick, stacked as a little tiered crown and set on the filled timbale. Ranhofer gives no oven temperature, and does not say where the discs are baked.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives no yield; the pieces are small, the widest pastry disc measuring only an inch and a half across. Fill and cap close to serving, since the sauce will soften the case.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of roughly thirty-four years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York (1862-1876 and 1879-1896), and its side-dish chapter is largely a catalogue of variations: the same pastry case recurs with a different garnish and a different place-name attached. A la Calaisienne points to Calais on the Channel coast, and in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage such names generally signalled a region's produce rather than any dish actually cooked there. For Calais and the neighbouring Boulogne coast that meant shellfish, and mussels in particular, which is consistent with their appearance here alongside oysters and crawfish in a cream-and-egg-yolk normande sauce. The pattern of naming garnishes after ports, generals and society figures was standard in the grande cuisine Ranhofer had trained in.