No. 990

Timbales with Red Beef Tongue

Timbales a l'Ecarlate

Butter some timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) and throw in some very finely chopped unsmoked beef tongue to make it adhere well to the bottom and sides, then fill with a chicken cream forcemeat (No. 75); poach and unmold the same as for No. 959. Send to the table with a separate sauce-boat of sauce prepared as follows: Cut some chicken livers into three-sixteenth inch squares; saute them in butter, moisten with white wine and espagnole sauce (No. 414), and strain through a tammy; add to the sauce a garnishing of truffles cut in three-sixteenth inch squares. These timbales contain no salpicon.

← No. 989 Venetian Timbales Hot Side Dishes No. 991 Florentine Toasts →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a full set of cross-referenced preparations to hand, so most of the work here sits behind numbers. What follows is what those numbers mean and where the dish can go wrong.

"Unsmoked beef tongue"À l'écarlate means brine-cured tongue — pink from the cure, not from smoke. Buy a cooked, cured (pickled) beef tongue from a deli counter, peel it if it has not been peeled, and chill it hard before chopping so the pieces stay distinct rather than smearing.
The lining is the dishButter the molds generously and cold, then press the finely chopped tongue against bottom and sides so it truly adheres. If it slides, the unmolded timbale comes out patchy and the whole point of the scarlet exterior is lost.
Chicken cream forcemeat (No. 75)A cream forcemeat: raw chicken breast pounded very fine and worked with cream; check Ranhofer's No. 75 for his own proportions and binding. Keep everything cold, and do not overrun the cream or the timbales weep when poached.
MoldsThese are small straight-sided cups holding only a few fluid ounces. Dariole molds or ramekins of that size are the modern equivalent; buttered ovenproof espresso cups work too.
Poaching (the method of No. 959)Stand the filled molds in a deep pan, pour in hot water to two-thirds their height, cover with buttered paper and poach in that water bath. The water must never boil — a bare shiver, around 170–180°F — or the forcemeat curdles and the timbales turn spongy. Small molds take roughly 20 to 25 minutes; the centers should be just set and springy. Rest a minute or two before unmolding.
Espagnole (No. 414)A brown sauce built on brown roux, brown stock and mirepoix, reduced over hours. A good reduced brown veal stock or a well-made demi-glace stands in without apology.
The livers, brieflyChicken livers cut in 3/16-inch dice need under a minute in hot butter. Sauté, deglaze with white wine, add the espagnole, then strain — Ranhofer wants the liver flavor in the sauce, not the texture, and long cooking makes it grainy and bitter.
TammyA tammy is a fine woolen straining cloth, worked with two people twisting the ends. A fine chinois pressed with a ladle, or a conical strainer lined with muslin, does the same job.
"No salpicon"A salpicon is a diced garnish bound in sauce, folded into the center of many of Ranhofer's timbales. He is flagging that these are solid forcemeat throughout — the only diced element is the truffle in the sauce.

A Little History

À l'écarlate — "in scarlet" — is the old French kitchen's term for beef tongue cured in a nitrate brine, which fixes the meat a bright pink rather than letting it cook to grey. The name attaches to the color, not to any red seasoning, and it appears across nineteenth-century French menus in pressed tongue, garnishes and, as here, decorative linings. Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that house's repertoire; the timbale section is a good illustration of how the book is built, since almost every preparation is assembled from numbered components stored elsewhere in the volume.