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Consomme, Montmorency
Prepare a consomme, strain into another saucepan and keep simmering until required. Plunge six large lettuce leaves in boiling water five minutes. Lift up, drain and carefully flatten on a cloth. Finely chop two ounces lean raw veal, place in a mortar and pound to a pulp; add two egg yolks, two saltspoons salt, saltspoon cayenne and saltspoon grated nutmeg; pound well again, then press through a sieve into a bowl, add two tablespoons cream, and sharply mix. Then spread the force over the leaves evenly, neatly roll up and lay in a small sautoire, with tablespoon butter two tablespoons consomme, cover with lightly buttered paper, and set in oven five minutes. Remove, lift up with a skimmer and cut in half-inch pieces. Place in a soup tureen with two ounces cooked macaroni cut same shape, then pour the consomme over and serve.
A clear soup with a garnish of veal forcemeat rolled in lettuce leaves and sliced into rounds. Almost all the work is in the garnish; the broth itself is assumed to be already made and clarified.
- Keep the consommé clearOnce strained it should be held at a bare simmer, never a rolling boil, or the clarification breaks up and the soup clouds. Add the garnish at the last moment and serve immediately.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon. Two saltspoons of salt for 2 oz of veal is right; a quarter teaspoon of cayenne is assertive, and half that is closer to modern taste.
- Quantity of consomméQuantity of consomme -- No volume is given, and the recipe does not say how many it serves. If the six leaves are taken as six portions, about 1 1/2 quarts, roughly a cup per bowl, would suit.
- Sautoire and buttered paperA sautoire is a shallow straight-sided saute pan. The recipe does not say whether the buttered paper sits on the rolls or across the pan; laid directly on them, as a cartouche, it keeps them moist, and parchment does the job.
- Oven heatNone is specified. Moderate, 350F, suits it, and the pan should go in covered so the rolls steam rather than colour.
- Blanching the leavesFive minutes in boiling water turns lettuce to grey pulp. Thirty to sixty seconds makes the leaves pliable enough to roll, after which they need refreshing in cold water and blotting dry so the forcemeat sticks.
- The forcemeatMortar and sieve can be replaced by a food processor, but push the puree through a fine sieve anyway; unsieved sinew makes the slices ragged. Keep the veal, yolks and cream cold throughout or the mixture separates.
- Cooking throughFive minutes is short for raw veal. Roll the leaves no thicker than a thumb and check that the centre is firm and set -- 160F for a ground-veal mixture -- before slicing.
- Cut to match"Same shape" means the cooked macaroni is cut into half-inch lengths so it echoes the half-inch rounds of stuffed lettuce. The visual match is the whole point of the garnish.
Nineteenth-century French kitchens catalogued consommés by their garnish, and the names read like a guest list of aristocratic houses and estates: Montmorency, Colbert, Sévigné, Rachel. Montmorency was one of the great noble families of France, and the district north of Paris that carried its name is still associated with the sour cherry grown there, which is why Montmorency on a dessert menu almost always means cherries. On a soup menu it does not; the classical repertoire attached the same name to more than one garnish, and books of this period are not always consistent about which. What is consistent is the method: a clarified stock is served with a small, precisely cut garnish prepared separately, so the broth stays transparent and the garnish keeps its shape. The International Cook Book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, a longtime chef at Delmonico's in New York, belongs to that tradition of American restaurant cookery that took its vocabulary wholesale from Paris.