FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 175 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The jellies just mentioned form a transition to the com- pound creams, or Bavaroises, or Bavarian cheeses, which derive their consistency from gelatine, their richness from cream, and their flavour from extract of fruit, and owing to their triple basis are amongst the finest products of culinary art. BLANC-MANGER 271 Blanc-Manger and its Transformations. It appears from a letter of Madame de Maintenon that Dr. Fagon prescribed under the name of hlanc-manger an aliment to be used by patients affected with in- flammatory disorders. On following up the matter his- torically, we found the following old recipe for hlmic-matiger : Pound 125 grm. of blanched almonds with a little water, and add a litre of consomm4 made without vegetables and free from fat ; in the place of the vegetables put into the bouillon with which you make consomm6 two cloves, a stick of cinnamon, and some salt ; when the bouillon is well mixed with the almonds, add 60 grm. of the white flesh of roast fowl, minced and pounded, free from skin, tendons, and bone ; or roast veal, or a piece of breadcrumb. When all is well mixed, pass through the tammy, add to the pur4e the juice of an orange and 125 grm. of sugarBlanc-Manger, and place on a lively fire until the composition has become thickened. This, then, is really a so^cp of almonds and supreme de volaille in consomm6 ; how its name hlanc-manger came to be confined to a white jelly is not ascertained ; but the limitation is of relatively recent origin, perhaps not older than the beginning of the present century. A blanc-manger is nowadays a jelly made with calf’s foot, or gelatine, and milk of almonds. There are several modifications, marked by greater or lesser concentration of the ingredients. A French recipe even goes so far as to destroy the white colour of the jelly by an addition of grenetine, being gelatine coloured red with alkanet-root or cochineal. A recipe for a fried hlanc-manger leads to a pudding-like mixture of rice-flour, cream, marchpanes, macaroons, and eggs, lemon-zest, and salt, which is to be fried in butter or lard. But this is a misapplication of the name altogether, and should be discontinued. 272 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY Many modern recipes for hlanc-manger are content with a mixture of milk and starch, w'hich, when boiled and cooled, becomes an opaque jelly, a mere flummery. This may be eaten with a sweet custard sauce. Others, again, destroy the character of the dish by adding chocolate, and term it chocolate blanc-manger. These are barbarisms from which every Appreciator of good cookery must turn away. Use of Perfumes and Ethers in Jellies. Jellies should not be impregnated with mere perfu,rnes, such as violets, for they will be as disappointing as the sugared violets which became a fashion under the Second Empire in France. Artiflcial ethers resembling fruit- essences should also be avoided. Fruit Jams which in England are called Cheese.