No. 978

Palermitaine Timbales

Timbales a la Palermitaine

The salpicon to be composed of red beef tongue, mushrooms and foies-gras, mingled with a tomatoed half-glaze sauce (No. 413). Butter the interior of the timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) with some well kneaded, softened butter that has not been melted, and set on the flat bottoms a thin round piece of truffle measuring three-quarters of an inch across. Cook till slightly firm some small spaghetti macaroni; drain it well, dry, and turn it in a spiral around the entire inside of the mold beginning at the bottom and continuing until the mold is completely full; it is better to use a single piece of macaroni for this. Support the macaroni with a layer of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), and set a half inch ball of the salpicon in the center; cover with more forcemeat and finish the same as for the timbales (No. 959). Serve separately a Palermitaine sauce (No. 514).

← No. 977 Neapolitan Timbales Hot Side Dishes No. 979 Perigordine Timbales →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, half-glaze, forcemeat and truffles on hand, so the entry is a set of assembly notes rather than a standalone recipe. The hinge is the macaroni lining: it has to be pliable but not soft, or the spiral collapses and the unmolded timbale loses its striped shell.

Cook the pasta short"slightly firm" means the strand should still have bite, and erring on the underdone side is sensible because it cooks again inside the forcemeat. Drain, spread on a towel, and let it dry until tacky rather than slippery; wet pasta will not stay coiled against buttered metal.
One long strandRanhofer's preference for a single piece is practical. Modern spaghetti is roughly 10 inches long, so a small timbale mold will take several strands; press the cut ends firmly against the previous coil as you go, and work the spiral from the bottom rim upward.
Butter, not melted butterSoftened, kneaded butter clings to the mold wall and holds the truffle disc and pasta in place. Melted butter runs to the bottom and the lining slides during filling.
SalpiconA salpicon is simply a fine dice, here about 1/8 inch, of cooked ingredients bound with sauce. Red beef tongue means cured, cooked tongue, sold as pickled or brined tongue; deli-cut smoked tongue is an acceptable stand-in. Bind it lightly, just enough to hold a half-inch ball.
Foies-grasHere most likely a cooked foie gras preparation cut in dice rather than raw lobe. If you would rather not use it, a firm chicken liver parfait dices the same way, though the result is coarser.
Quenelle forcemeatNo. 89 is Ranhofer's chicken quenelle forcemeat; consult that entry for its proportions rather than assuming them. Keep everything at refrigerator temperature while working it, and poach a teaspoon of it in simmering water to check seasoning before filling the molds.
Cooking method and temperatureCooking method -- the cross-referenced timbales are poached in a bain-marie: molds in a roasting pan, hot water to two-thirds their height, covered, in a moderate oven. Ranhofer gives no temperature or timing here; small molds will take roughly 20-25 minutes. The forcemeat should read 165F at the center and feel springy. Let them stand a few minutes before unmolding so they firm up and release cleanly.
The sauceNo. 514 is a separate preparation in the same book, served apart so it does not soften the pasta shell; look that entry up rather than assuming its composition. Sauce the plate, not the timbale.
YieldThe original gives none. Figure one timbale per person as a hot side or first course; note that the salpicon quantity is tiny, only a half-inch ball per mold, so most of the volume is forcemeat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working system set down in print, which is why entry 978 assumes you can turn to entries 89, 413, 514 and 959. A timbale takes its name from the drum-shaped mold, from the Arabic tabl by way of French, and by the late nineteenth century the word covered any forcemeat preparation cooked in such a mold and turned out whole. The garnish names in this section are geographic shorthand in the standard French manner of the day: o Sicily, and the tomato and pasta are the signal, a macaroni lining being often said to mark Palermo and Naples on a French carte. It is also a display piece. Coiling a single strand of spaghetti up the wall of a small mold, setting a truffle disc as a medallion on the base, and hiding a half-inch ball of tongue and foie gras at the center is labor that only makes sense in a kitchen with a large staff and a clientele that noticed.