No. 963

Timbales a la Chevaliere

Butter some timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) using kneaded butter, but neither melted nor wet. Decorate the sides with pieces of sweet noodle paste (No. 142), executed by cutting out fanciful pieces and laying them on the sides in a design formed of two back to back crescents, divided by three rounds of different sizes, the largest one on the top and decreasing in size to the bottom, moisten the noodle paste. Line the molds with a thin timbale paste (No. 150) without disturbing the decoration. Fill inside with some buttered paper and flour, cover over with a layer of thin paste, cut it evenly around the top, and pinch the edges with a pastry tong. Cook the timbales in a moderate oven; remove the lid and the insides, and brush over the paste with some glaze, then garnish with foies-gras, mushrooms, and balls of truffles, the whole combined with a Madeira sauce (No. 492). Lay on top some cocks'-combs and kidneys rolled in a little meat glaze (No. 402), arranging them tastefully.

← No. 962 Timbales a la Calaisienne Hot Side Dishes No. 964 Duchess Timbales →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a late-nineteenth-century restaurant construction: a small pastry case baked blind in a decorated mold, then filled at the last moment. Read it as two separate jobs — build and bake the shells, then make the ragout that goes inside.

The hinge: the decoration goes in firstThe cut noodle-paste crescents and rounds are pressed against the buttered mold wall, then the lining paste is laid over them without shifting anything. When the timbale is turned out, that pattern is the outside. Work the butter soft and pliable with your fingers and never melt it — melted butter runs and floats the cutouts out of position.
"Kneaded butter"Here it most likely means butter worked smooth and spreadable rather than the flour-and-butter beurre manie used to thicken sauces; the instruction that it be neither melted nor wet points to cold butter mashed to a paste with a spatula.
Moderate ovenRoughly 350F (175C) in modern terms; Ranhofer gives no temperature or timing. The shells are done when the paste is set and pale gold, which takes longer for larger molds.
Buttered paper and flourThis is blind-baking. Dry flour, contained in paper, holds the walls and lid up and conducts heat gently. Dried beans or rice do the same job, and the paper must be well buttered or it will bond to the paste.
Noodle paste and timbale pasteRanhofer's No. 142 is an egg-rich paste, stiff enough to cut cleanly and hold a shape. No. 150 is a firm lining paste, made for standing up in a mold rather than for eating as flaky pastry.
Cocks' combs and kidneysA luxury garnish of the classical repertoire, and effectively unobtainable now. "Kidneys" in this context are rooster testicles (rognons de coq), not kidneys. Sweetbreads, small chicken quenelles or extra truffle-and-mushroom garnish sit in the same place on the plate.
Glaze versus meat glazeThe recipe does not specify which glaze is brushed over the baked paste. The No. 402 meat glaze rolled around the garnish is heavily reduced brown stock; a spoonful of demi-glace reduced until it coats will do the same.
Foies-grasMost likely a cooked preparation, terrine or whole liver, cut in dice and warmed in the sauce rather than seared. Fold it in off the heat so it does not render out.
Yield and serviceOne timbale per person as a hot entree; the recipe scales entirely with the number of molds. Fill and lid them at the last minute, since the pastry softens within a few minutes of meeting the Madeira sauce.

A Little History

A la chevaliere belongs to the vocabulary of nineteenth-century French garnishes, in which a name signalled a fixed combination of ingredients to any trained cook: here foie gras, mushrooms, truffle and the cocks' combs and kidneys that were standard luxury trim in Careme's generation and were still being served in the grand hotels of Ranhofer's day. Timbales themselves take their name from the drum-shaped mold (Arabic tabl, a drum, by way of the French for a kettledrum), and the elaborately decorated version in this entry is showpiece work — the pattern of crescents and graduated rounds exists purely to be admired before the case is broken into. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that kitchen's repertoire, complete with cross-references to numbered pastes, sauces and glazes, which is why the recipe reads as a set of instructions to someone who already has the components on hand.