No. 965

Timbales a la Dumas

For the salpicon have some well reduced Duxelle, and mix in truffles with raw egg-yolks. Decorate the molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) by placing in the center of the bottom a round piece of tongue, and at equal distances, around this four round bits of truffles; make four triangles the length of the mold from slices of tongue, each one being an eighth of an inch wide, lay them on symmetrically, and place eight round bits of truffle inside of each triangle near the bottom, and eight more near the top, intersecting them alternately. Garnish the bottom and sides with chicken cream forcemeat (No. 75), lay a half inch ball of the salpicon in the center, and cover with more forcemeat, poach, unmold, and serve with a light ravigote sauce (No. 531).

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly recipe rather than a standalone one: Ranhofer expects you to have his duxelles, his chicken cream forcemeat (No. 75) and his ravigote (No. 531) already in hand. What follows is what a modern cook needs to reconstruct it.

The hinge: keep the forcemeat coldChicken cream forcemeat is pounded breast meat, egg white and heavy cream, and it breaks if it warms. Work over ice, and chill the lined molds until firm before filling so the decoration does not shift when the salpicon goes in.
Salpicon and duxelleA salpicon is simply a filling of small even dice bound with something. Duxelles here is finely chopped mushroom and shallot cooked dry — "well reduced" means until no moisture weeps out, or the timbale will be soggy. The raw yolks are a binder and set during poaching.
The moldsRanhofer points to a mold shown in his Fig. 137 (No. 2), evidently a small timbale or dariole shape; he gives no capacity, and the only size clue in the text is the half-inch ball of salpicon set in the center. Butter them, line with the tongue and truffle pattern, then the forcemeat; a metal dariole or a small ramekin works.
TongueThis means cured (pickled) beef tongue, cooked, peeled and pressed, sold ready-cooked at good delicatessens. It is used here for its dense pink color against the black truffle, so slice it thin and cut the strips cleanly.
TrufflesFresh black truffle at 1894 prices was expensive but ordinary in a hotel kitchen. Whole preserved winter truffles are the practical substitute; truffle oil is not, since the decoration depends on solid rounds cut with a small plain cutter.
Poaching, in numbersPoaching -- Cover with buttered paper and poach in a bain-marie. Ranhofer gives no temperatures; as a modern equivalent, hold the water well below a boil, around 175F -- a boil curdles the cream forcemeat and blows the pattern apart. Small molds take roughly 20 to 25 minutes; the center should feel just set.
UnmoldingRest 3 to 5 minutes off the heat, run a thin knife round, then invert onto a warm plate. Turned out too soon they slump; left too long they stick.
Sauce and yieldRavigote here is most likely the hot version -- a velouté finished with herb butter and a little vinegar or lemon, rather than the cold vinaigrette -- though the page tells us only that it is "light"; check No. 531. Sauce the plate rather than the timbale so the decoration stays visible. Count one to two molds per person as a hot side dish.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire written down, cross-referenced by number the way a brigade actually used it. Hot timbales like this belong to the entremets and hot side dish course of the long service-a-la-russe menu, where a small molded item of forcemeat lined with a geometric pattern of tongue and truffle demonstrated the kitchen's discipline as much as its cooking: the design had to survive poaching and unmolding intact. The name is generally taken to honor Alexandre Dumas pere, whose posthumous Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine (1873) made him a fixture in the gastronomic pantheon; nineteenth-century chefs attached the names of writers, singers and diplomats to dishes freely, and such dedications generally record admiration rather than any documented connection to the man himself.