No. 976

Mosaic Timbales

Timbales Mosaique

The timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) are to be entirely decorated with small lozenges of tongue, truffle and hard boiled egg-whites, to represent a mosaic ground work. Begin by placing a ring of truffle at the bottom of the mold, inside of this a smaller ring of egg-whites, and in the center to fit in a half inch round of beef tongue; this fills the entire bottom. Decorate the sides with alternate lozenges to form squares or boxes, having all the red on one side, the black on the other, and the white on top of each square; the upper and lower row should be divided in two lengthwise; by following these directions they will form perfect mosaic squares, taking care that the points are directed outward; support this decoration with a snipe quenelle forcemeat (No. 91); set in the center a ball made of royal cream (No. 241), and finish filling the molds; poach and serve them as for No. 959. Serve a white Colbert sauce (No. 451) separately.

← No. 975 Montgomery Timbales Hot Side Dishes No. 977 Neapolitan Timbales →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a decorated forcemeat timbale from the height of Delmonico's kitchen, and it is as much a piece of inlay work as cooking. Almost everything that determines success happens before any heat is applied.

It cannot be made from this page aloneFour cross-references carry the actual work: the snipe quenelle forcemeat (No. 91), the royal cream (No. 241), the poaching and turning-out method (No. 959) and the white Colbert sauce (No. 451). Read all four before starting; this entry is only the decoration and assembly.
The moldsRanhofer's timbale molds (his No. 2, Fig. 137) are small metal molds, straight-sided or slightly tapered; the book gives no capacity here, but a dariole mold is the right idea. One per person; the page sits among the hot side dishes.
Making the decoration stickLozenges and rings will not hold to a bare mold. Butter the molds heavily and chill them hard, or line them with a thin film of aspic set in the mold on ice, then lay the cut pieces face down with the point of a knife. Work cold and work fast; a warm mold undoes the pattern.
Cutting the piecesTruffle, egg white and tongue want to be cut thin and all to the same thickness so the mosaic reads flat. Use small aspic or truffle cutters for the lozenges and a half-inch plain round cutter for the tongue centre, as the recipe specifies. The red comes from cured, cooked beef tongue.
Snipe forcemeatWild snipe cannot legally be sold in the United States, so the bird is a hunter's ingredient rather than a shopping one. Quail or another dark-fleshed game bird makes the same style of forcemeat; plain chicken will give the texture but not the flavour the dish is built around.
Poach, do not boilThe hinge of the dish. Set the filled molds in a bain-marie of hot but not simmering water, covered, until the forcemeat is just set; small molds will not take long, so start checking early. Water that reaches a simmer puffs the forcemeat, splits it and pushes the mosaic off the walls. The recipe defers to No. 959 for the method.
UnmoldingRest the poached timbales two or three minutes, blot any water from the top, then invert. A brief run of a thin knife around the rim helps, but the decoration is fragile, so lift the mold straight up rather than twisting.
The sauceColbert in this tradition is a butter sauce with meat glaze, lemon and chopped herbs rather than a brown sauce; check No. 451 for Ranhofer's own white version. Keep it below a simmer or it breaks, and send it to the table separately as directed rather than napping the timbales, which would hide the pattern.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe shows the decorative side of that kitchen at full stretch: the food is meant to be looked at before it is eaten. Mosaic work in truffle, tongue and hard-boiled egg white was a standard vocabulary of nineteenth-century grande cuisine, used on chaud-froids, galantines and moulded creams alike, the three ingredients chosen because they cut cleanly and give black, red and white without dye. The word timbale is generally traced to a drum-shaped vessel and by Ranhofer's day meant both the mold and anything poached in it. A dish like this belongs to service a la russe, where small identical portions came to the table in sequence, and it assumes what Delmonico's had and a domestic cook did not: a brigade with time to cut several hundred lozenges before dinner.