The 1901 Cookbook Archive

Section XII: Aspics and Cold Dishes — Lanspik, Jellied Meat and Fish, Vinaigrettes and Marinades

Full English translation of the historical introduction, notes, proportions and methods for Section XII: aspics, historical mayonnaise and cold dishes. The original recipe numbering is preserved, and all numbered recipes are available in English.

Historical text, fully translated: The sections and introductory notes below follow the original 1901 chapter in their printed order, including old units and historical practices. The numbered recipes are listed in English after the chapter notes. Period advice is presented as archival text, not as modern food-safety or medical guidance.

Editorial clarification: The original book repeats the paragraph number 12 under aspics. Its vegetarian variation also mentions gelatin and isinglass, both animal-derived and not suitable for vegetarian diets today. Historical preservation and serving procedures require independent modern food-safety assessment.

A. ASPICS AND ROLLS.

Note. 1) Clear, adhesive meat or fish stock which sets as it cools and is used for aspics, historical mayonnaise dishes and the decoration of cold food is called lanspik.

2) An aspic mold serving six to eight people requires four glasses of lanspik.

3) To give a meat aspic sufficient setting strength in the above proportion, simmer either one calf's head weighing 5½ pounds or four calf's feet weighing four pounds. Alternatively, when using beef or chicken broth, add twelve sheets of the best-quality white gelatin to four glasses of lanspik.

4) When making lanspik from feet, rub them with flour, singe them, wash them, remove the bones, split them lengthwise and put all four feet, together with the bones, in a saucepan. Pour in either cold water or the stock of beef, chicken or another meat, according to the intended aspic. In general, the greater the quantity of meat cooked in a broth or lanspik, the better its flavor.

5) From the beginning put into this lanspik two carrots, one parsley root, half a celery root, half a leek, two onions, a small bunch of herbs, five to ten allspice berries and one or two bay leaves. Do not salt it. Set it over moderate heat, leaving the pan uncovered, and cook for no less than three hours, replacing evaporated liquid with hot, but not boiling, water or stock.

6) When the feet or head are cooked, remove the flesh from the bones and use it for another dish: feet fried, boiled or fried in batter, or the head served with sauce. See recipes Nos. 889–897.

7) If time allows, continue boiling the remaining bones. Then set the pan aside, let it cool slightly, skim off excess fat and add tarragon vinegar, gooseberry juice from recipe No. 3798 or sherry, to taste.

8) Color the stock with burnt sugar, as in recipe No. 391, adding enough to give the aspic an attractive golden color.

9) If beef, chicken or another stock is used instead of calves' heads and feet, as described above, gelatin is required to make it set. Choose the best white gelatin; soak it first in cold water, squeeze it out and put it in hot but not boiling stock until it dissolves. Only then add vinegar, gooseberry juice or sherry to taste and clarify the stock with the mixture described below. If everything was prepared without exact measurements, test whether the lanspik will set by placing a teaspoonful on ice: if it cools and sets completely in five minutes, the lanspik should be satisfactory. If it is too concentrated, add water and bring it to a boil.

10) To clarify meat lanspik and improve its strength and flavor, use a meat clarification mixture: take a quarter or half a pound of raw beef flesh, chicken fillet or roasted hazel grouse, pound it finely and put it through a meat grinder. Mix with half a glass of cold water, warm the mixture with three or four spoonfuls of hot stock, stir and immediately pour it into the boiling lanspik. Stir, move the saucepan to the edge of the stove and cover it. After an hour and a half, when the clarifying mixture has curdled, skim off the fat and pour everything through a napkin tied to the legs of an overturned stool, letting it drain slowly into a bowl. The author warns against placing the stool in a draft, saying this may make the lanspik cloudy. When it has drained, boil it again, cool it slightly, pour a little into the bottom of the mold and chill it as described below. Instead of meat, two or three egg whites may be used for clarification: beat them, mix with half a glass of warm water, add to the boiling lanspik, boil thoroughly and strain through a napkin stretched over an overturned bench in the same manner.

11) Calves' feet or head are not used for suckling-pig aspic, because the pig's meat is considered to contain enough natural setting material. For greater certainty, two or three sheets of the best white gelatin may be added per four glasses of lanspik. Clarify it either with egg whites or with meat. Do not use vinegar, which would conceal the delicate flavor of the young pig. Prepare and clarify it as described in the note on suckling pig (printed page 337).

12) For fish lanspik or fish aspic, ruffe are preferred to provide the necessary setting strength. One pound of ruffe, cooked without salt, yields one glass of lanspik with the addition of one gelatin sheet or almost one zolotnik of isinglass. Tear the isinglass as finely as possible, cover it with one glass of cold water, reduce the liquid to one-eighth of a glass and mix it with the ruffe stock. Clarify the mixture with pressed caviar pounded together with cold water.

For six to eight diners use one-eighth of a pound of pressed caviar. Pound it as finely as possible in a mortar, dilute with several spoonfuls of water, stir and warm it. Stir the boiling lanspik briskly with a spatula in one direction, then pour in the caviar quickly. Immediately add previously prepared and strained juice of half a lemon, adding sherry or burnt sugar if desired, and season with salt. Cover, move the saucepan to the edge of the stove and leave it for about half an hour to clarify. Then strain through a damp napkin stretched over a stool. To economize, half the ruffe may be replaced with cheaper roach. For four glasses of lanspik the author allows four to sixty ruffe, depending on their size, together with three zolotniks of isinglass or four sheets of gelatin.

12) To decorate an aspic, proceed as follows.

Pour a little prepared lanspik, cooled but not yet set, onto the bottom of a round or oval mold, and let it set. Arrange on the bottom and sides some very thin half-slices of hard-boiled egg, capers, small mushrooms, pickles, fresh or preserved crayfish tails, shelled peas, star-shaped pieces of boiled carrot and parsley leaves: a little of each, without necessarily using everything at once. Arrange some of these decorations and pour in more lanspik. When it has almost set, add pieces of the meat or fish for which the aspic is being prepared and the remaining garnish, pour on the rest of the lanspik and chill. Before serving, dip the mold in hot water for a minute, wipe it dry, cover it with a round or oblong platter, turn it over, set it on the table, center the mold on the platter and remove it.

If the mold does not come off immediately, run a towel dipped in boiling water and wrung out over it.

13) For vegetarians, replace the meat or fish broth with a strong stock made from roots and a bunch of herbs. Use gooseberry juice instead of vinegar, and gelatin or isinglass for setting. Clarify with beaten egg whites. Replace pieces of meat or fish with the vegetable and root garnishes listed above; for the sauce use lemon, cranberry or gooseberry juice (No. 3798) instead of vinegar.

The proportions are intended for six to eight people.

For nine to twelve diners, increase all quantities one and a half times.

For thirteen to eighteen diners, double the quantities; thus for the lanspik use one calf's head and four calves' feet and reduce the stock to six or seven glasses.

B. HISTORICAL MAYONNAISE DISHES.

Note. Mayonnaise here means a dish of meat or fish containing lanspik, the setting stock also used for aspic, and mousse: a concentrated meat or fish stock beaten into a thick white foam. The fish, poultry or game is coated with this foam and decorated with the previously described lanspik.

2) Lanspik and mousse may both be made with ordinary meat stock or in the meatless manner described in the book.

3) The preparation of meat-based and meatless lanspik is explained in the note on aspic. There I allow four glasses of liquid for six to eight people. To make a mousse, set aside one and a half of those four glasses for decorative lanspik. If it is meat-based, clarify it with the meat mixture or egg whites; if it is the meatless version described in the book, clarify it with pressed caviar. Add gooseberry juice or two spoonfuls of vinegar and a small wineglass of sherry, bring to a boil, pour onto a platter and cool. Cut it into thin squares or small cubes, or chop it finely. Use the remaining two and a half glasses for mousse: strain into a deep earthenware bowl and, while still warm, begin beating it with a whisk over ice, adding Provençal oil a spoonful at a time, one-third of a glass in all, and two full tablespoons of vinegar drop by drop, until the mousse becomes a thick white foam.

4) If the mousse has set too firmly, remove it from the ice and beat it on the table in moderately cool surroundings until it has the consistency of a thick sauce. Pour it over the fish, game or turkey arranged on a platter. When it has set, decorate the top with parsley leaves and pieces of colored lanspik cut into neat shapes.

5) Surround the fish, poultry or game with small heaps of different vegetables: diagonally sliced pickled gherkins, capers, peeled olives, chopped hard-boiled eggs, pickled or freshly boiled cauliflower, sliced asparagus, roasted beetroot, boiled carrots and potatoes cut into regular dice, salad dressed with Provençal oil and vinegar, cooked green beans and white beans, fresh cucumbers and the like. Separate the groups with strips of chopped lanspik.

6) All these garnishes should be moistened with the mustard sauce generally used for salads: Provençal oil, vinegar, a little mustard, salt and pepper, with parsley, dill, tarragon, chervil or other herbs added if desired. Serve a sauce separately in a sauceboat: Provençal sauce No. 480, mixed sauce No. 487, or sauce No. 479.

7) For a large platter serving twelve to eighteen people, this mayonnaise dish may be presented as follows.

8) In the center of the platter turn out aspic that has set in a ring-shaped mold with an opening in the middle. Fill the opening with mixed sauce No. 478 and serve the rest separately in a sauceboat.

9) Arrange around the aspic pieces of fish, turkey or chicken that have previously been dipped into the mousse described above. The mousse may sometimes be prepared in several colors, namely:

a) White, in its natural color.

b) Red, tinted with red gelatin.

c) Yellow, with a little saffron.

d) Blue: pour two or three spoonfuls of boiling water over a handful of cornflowers, cover and leave for one hour. Squeeze through a clean cloth and add a teaspoonful or more of the infusion to the mousse.

e) Green: pound a handful of cleaned and washed spinach, dried with a napkin, in an earthenware mortar and squeeze out the juice. Add one spoonful or more to the mousse, or use a quarter-glass of cooked, puréed spinach.

In this case dip one piece of fish or chicken, and so on, into mousse of one color, the next piece into another, continuing until all are coated. Arrange the pieces evenly as a garland immediately around the central aspic.

10) Around these mousse-coated pieces another narrow garland may be made from some or all of the vegetables and roots listed above, with their colors carefully arranged. The bright strips of beetroot and carrot should be particularly symmetrical because they stand out most. Parsley leaves should divide the vegetable border at intervals. When such a brightly colored vegetable garland is used, the mousse itself should be white.

11) If the mousse is multicolored, the vegetable garland should instead be of one color, either lettuce with fresh cucumbers or lettuce alone.

12) For fish mayonnaise always choose a large fish, such as salmon, tench, whitefish, trout, sturgeon, nelma or pike. Take a very fresh three-pound fish, scale or clean it, gut and wash it as described in the notes on fish, then wrap it in a clean napkin and leave it for two hours. If it has just been killed, make a lengthwise cut along its back so that the skin will not burst when the fish is cooked.

13) If the fish has just been killed, cover it with clean cold water and salt lightly, using a teaspoonful of salt for every three glasses of water. If it is no longer newly killed, first make a stock from one parsley root, half a celery root, half a leek, two onions, a small bunch of parsley, celery and leek greens, five peppercorns and one bay leaf. When the roots are cooked, strain and cool this liquid. Meanwhile place the whole fish on the grate of a fish kettle with its backbone upward and tie it to the grate in the position of a swimming fish. Lower the grate into the kettle and cover the fish just barely with cold salted water or the cooled vegetable stock. Put on the lid and heat gently. From the moment it boils, cook for twenty to thirty minutes depending on the thickness of the fish; keep the middle of the kettle over greater heat than its ends because the middle of the fish is thicker. When the fish is cooked, move it to the edge of the stove and let it cool under the lid. Lift it out with the grate, remove the skin and allow it to dry and set. Transfer to a long fish platter, coat it with mousse, decorate with lanspik and leave in a cold place for half an hour to one hour. Shortly before serving, surround it with boiled or pickled vegetables and greens, as described in the preceding note.

14) If fish for aspic or mayonnaise is to be served in slices, cut the slices from the fish while still raw and place them directly into boiling salted water or boiling stock of roots and spices.

15) Serve the following sauces with either meat or fish mayonnaise dishes: Provençal sauce No. 480, mixed sauce No. 478, mustard sauce No. 476 or Tatar sauce No. 461.

The quantities are intended for six to eight people.

For nine to twelve people, increase them one and a half times.

For twelve to eighteen, or even twenty-four people, double them.

C. VINAIGRETTES AND OTHER COLD DISHES.

Note. Vinaigrette may be prepared with beef, game, herring or large fish, and always includes some vegetables, among them cucumbers, potatoes and beets. Peel the cucumbers, remove the seeds and cut them into diagonal pieces. Peel and wash the potatoes, put them into cold water and cook under a lid so that they do not disintegrate. Drain and leave covered until cold, then cut into slices; for a more elaborate table, a fluted cutter may be used to make star shapes. Wash medium-sized beets with long roots, rather than round ones resembling turnips, and without trimming their roots place them in just enough cold water to cover. Cook them uncovered, though it is better to bake them beforehand in the oven.

When the cooked beets are soft, drain, peel and cut them into even slices; these too may be cut into decorative stars with tin cutters. Chop the trimmings finely, mix with chopped parsley and moisten with mustard sauce. Place this mixture at the bottom of the platter, then arrange everything else in a neat mound above it.

The vinaigrette may be decorated with slices of potato and beetroot of equal size arranged around the edge of the dish, alternating with watercress or green parsley.

Pour over mustard sauce No. 476 or Provençal sauce No. 480, or simply dress with vinegar, Provençal oil, salt and other seasonings.

D. MARINATED FISH AND POULTRY SERVED FOR BREAKFAST OR AS APPETIZERS.

Also served:

Marinated beluga, see No. 4080.	Monastery-style marinated pike, see No. 4083.
Fried, marinated eel, see No. 4080.	Marinated salmon, see No. 4082.
Boiled, marinated eel, see No. 4078.	English-style marinated fish, see No. 4085.
Marinated zander, see No. 4081.	Other marinated and smoked fish and poultry: see Section LI in Part II.
Marinated pike, see No. 4081.

E. COLD ROASTS SERVED AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE BRIGHT RESURRECTION OF CHRIST (EASTER).

Cold beef, No. 784.	Wild boar's head, see No. 985.
Marinated beef, see No. 785.	Roast elk or chamois, see No. 987.
Ham, see No. 981.	Roast suckling pig stuffed with liver, see No. 962.
Old boar's head, see No. 983.
Roast veal, see No. 850.

Numbered recipes in English

The original chapter lists 44 unique numbered recipes. The following links open their English translations, in the original printed order.

Recipes 1441–1472

Recipes 1473–1484

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