Some recipes devised by Antonin Carême
Les petits vol-au-vents à la Nesle
1 French loaf
2 spoonfuls chicken jelly
2 spoonfuls velouté sauce
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped mushrooms
4 egg yolks
2 chickens, boned
2 calves' udders
salt, nutmeg
20 vol-au-vents cases, the diameter of a glass
20 cocks'-combs
20 cocks' stones [testes]
10 lambs' sweetbreads
10 small truffles, pared, chopped, boiled in consommé
20 tiny mushrooms
20 lobster tails
4 fine whole lambs' brains, boiled and chopped
2 pints cream
sauce Allemande
Crumb a whole French loaf. Add two spoonfuls of poultry jelly, one of velouté sauce, one tablespoon of chopped parsley, two of mushrooms, chopped. Boil and stir as it thickens to a ball. Add two egg yolks. Pound the flesh of two boned chickens through a sieve. Boil two calves' udders – once cold, pound and pass through a sieve.
Then, mix six ounces of the breadcrumb panada to 10 ounces of the chicken meat and 10 of the calves' udders, and pound for 15 minutes. Add five drams of salt, some nutmeg and the yolks of two more eggs and a spoonful of cold velouté or béchamel sauce. Pound for a further 10 minutes. Test by poaching a ball in boiling water – it should form soft, smooth balls.
Make some balls of this poultry forcemeat in small coffee spoons, dip them in jelly broth and, after draining on a napkin, place them regularly in a vol-au-vent, already half-filled with:
• a good ragout of cocks'-combs and cocks' stones
• lambs' sweetbreads (thymus and pancreatic glands, washed in water for five hours, until the liquid runs clear)
• truffles
• mushrooms
• lobster tails
• fine whole lambs' brains
Cover all with an extra-thick sauce Allemande.
This recipe was prepared by Carême at the grand banquet at the Brighton Pavilion in 1817.
Le bar grillé à l'Italien
Grilled sea bass in an Italian champagne sauce
1 large sea bass
1.5 glasses champagne
2 spoonfuls chopped mushrooms
1 shallot
1 clove rocambole garlic
thyme, rosemary, pepper, allspice
2 glasses sauce allemande
1 ounce butter
juice of 1 lemon
Bass: filleted and lightly grilled.
The sauce: In a sauce pan, place a glass of champagne, two spoonfuls of finely chopped mushrooms, a shallot, a clove of rocambole garlic, a little thyme and rosemary, a pinch of pepper and of allspice. Reduce, and remove the herbs. Add next two glasses of sauce allemande and reduce further on a very low heat. Add a further half-glass of champagne and place the sauce in a bain-marie. Just before serving, swirl in a knob of butter and the juice of one lemon.
This recipe was prepared by Carême at the Château Rothschild in 1829.
Potage of puréed peas with small croûtons
3 quarts (6 pints) fresh garden peas
bunch of parsley
dram of salt
quarter pint reduced game consommé
2 ounces unsalted butter
butter-fried croûtons
Take three quarts of newly shelled peas, cover with water and boil with a bunch of parsley and a little salt. When the peas are tender, strain – keeping the water – and remove the parsley. Place the peas in a basin with a consommé of game reduced to a demi-glaze (ie a reduced, strained strong fowl stock). Press this mixture through a sieve.
Just before serving, reboil the water. Add it to the pea purée, with a pat of butter in the middle. Serve the croûtons separately.
This recipe was prepared by Carême at the Château Valençay in 1806.
Meringue des pommes en herrison
Apple meringue as a hedgehog
40 apples
6 ounces clarified sugar
peel of 1 lemon
half a jar of apricot jam
2 egg whites
2 tablespoons icing sugar
castor and granulated sugar to dust
8 ounces sliced almonds
4 ounces sliced pistachios
After coring 40 apples with an apple scoop, peel 15 of them quite round, putting each apple, as soon as it is peeled, in water, in the same way as for a suédois. Take eight and boil them in 6 ounces of clarified sugar, taking care that they remain a little firm.
In the meantime, peel the remaining seven and put them to boil immediately after taking the first out of the syrup. Remove when still firm. The remaining 25 should be peeled and cut in slices and added to the syrup with the peel of a lemon, and the whole put on a moderate fire.
When the apples are dissolved, stir them till they are reduced to a perfect marmalade, and rub them through a sieve and then add half a pot of apricot marmalade. When cold, spread two spoonfuls of this apple/apricot marmalade on an oven-proof serving dish on which you then place nine of the largest whole apples, on them five more, and the last on top.
First, put some marmalade on the inside of the apples, and fill up the vacancies with more. With the remainder of the marmalade, cover the entire in such a manner that the whole forms a perfect dome.
Then beat the whites of two eggs very stiff, and add to this two spoonfuls of icing sugar. Spread this meringue over the apples as regularly as possible, and then dust it all with castor sugar.
Take some sliced sweet almonds and stick them lightly but evenly on the sugar a quarter of an inch apart. When you have finished, strew some granulated sugar over the whole, and place your dish in a slack oven, in order that the almonds as well as the egg and sugar may become lightly coloured. You may afterwards add some pistachios, each cut in six fillets, placing them in small holes made with a silver skewer. Your dish is then put back in the oven for 10 minutes and placed on the table as soon as you take it out.
This recipe was prepared by Carême at the Brighton Pavilion in 1817 (but not at the grand banquet).
