No. 985

Scotch Timbales

Timbales a l'Ecossaise

Prepare some very thin pancakes the same as for rissolettes (No. 956). Butter timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) and line the inner sides with these pancakes; prepare a salpicon with four ounces of white chicken meat, the same quantity of mushrooms, and two ounces of rice; combine these ingredients with a buttered bechamel (No. 409) and let get cold. Fill the molds half full with chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), and cream forcemeat (No. 75), the same quantity of each well mixed together; in the center lay a half inch ball of the salpicon, and finish filling the mold with more forcemeat, poach and finish the same as for No. 959. After they are unmolded, lay them in the oven for one minute, then serve separately a Spanish sauce (No. 414) reduced with mushroom essence (No. 392).

← No. 984 Sartiges Timbales Hot Side Dishes No. 986 Soubise Timbales →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows the house's base preparations, so this reads as an assembly note rather than a recipe. Everything hinges on the poaching: the forcemeat must set gently in a water bath, never at a boil, or it curdles and weeps and the timbale collapses when turned out.

The cross-references[0] The cross-references -- Nothing here is self-contained. No. 956 (rissolettes) supplies the thin pancake, No. 89 a chicken quenelle forcemeat, No. 75 a cream forcemeat, No. 409 a bechamel finished with butter, No. 414 espagnole, No. 392 a mushroom essence, and No. 959 the poaching and finishing method. Read all of them before starting; the whole dish is scaffolding for those seven.
Timbale molds[1] Timbale molds -- Fig. 137, No. 2 is a small timbale mold, straight-sided or slightly tapered; no capacity is given. Modern dariole molds, small ramekins or a nonstick popover pan all work. Butter them cold and line with the pancakes cut to fit, overlapping slightly, with no gaps at the seam.
Poaching, not baking[2] Poaching, not baking -- "Poach" here means a bain-marie: molds in a deep pan, hot water well up their sides, held below a simmer and never allowed to bubble. The book gives no temperature; with the water pre-heated, small molds take roughly 20-25 minutes, and the centre should reach 165F with the top set but yielding. Rest five minutes before unmolding.
SalpiconA salpicon is simply a dice, cut small and even, about a quarter inch. Bound with a thick buttered bechamel and chilled firm, it holds together as the half-inch ball that goes in the centre. If it is loose it will bleed into the forcemeat during poaching.
Two ounces of riceCooked rice, not raw. Uncooked grains would swell and go gritty in the chilled salpicon. Boil it soft in stock or salted water and cool it before mixing.
Cream forcemeat and modern equipmentThe originals were pounded in a mortar and forced through a sieve. A food processor does it in a minute: cold raw chicken breast, salt, egg white, then cream added in a thin stream with the bowl and blade well chilled. Keep everything below 45F or the emulsion breaks.
Spanish sauceSauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on brown roux and veal stock. Reduced with mushroom essence it becomes what a later kitchen would call a mushroom-scented demi-glace; a good reduced brown veal stock, mounted with butter, stands in without embarrassment.
The final minute in the oven[7] The final minute in the oven -- This is only to dry the surface and take the chill off the pancake lining after unmolding. No temperature is given; a hot oven for sixty seconds. Longer and the forcemeat tightens.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, where he was chef for over thirty years, and its numbered preparations are cross-referenced precisely because the book was written as a working reference for professionals. Timbales, from the Arabic-derived French word for a drum, take their name from the shape of the mold rather than any fixed filling, and the hot timbale of forcemeat lined with crepe was a standard of the late nineteenth-century repertoire of hot side dishes. The label a l'Ecossaise, "in the Scottish manner," is one of the loosest in classical French cookery: it attaches to dishes with barley, with hard-boiled egg, with a brunoise of vegetables, and here apparently to the rice bound into the salpicon. Whether any Scottish cook would have recognised it is another matter; such national tags in this period were menu language, signalling a garnish to a French-trained brigade rather than describing a provenance.