Mousse d'Ecrevisses

Ingredients

• thirty crayfish
• a dozen fine carapaces
• one-half oz. of butter
• one oz. of red butter
• one-quarter pint of cold fish velouté
• six tablespoonfuls of melted fish jelly
• three-quarters pint of half-beaten cream

Method

1. 1

   Cook the crayfish and reserve the tails and carapaces.

2. 2

   Pound the remaining parts with mirepoix, butter, velouté, and jelly.

3. 3

   Stir over ice, then add cream and crayfish tails.

4. 4

   Mould the mixture and chill.

5. 5

   Decorate with truffle slices before serving.

As published

This recipe was extracted from A guide to modern cookery (1909) by A. Escoffier, page 192. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

thirty crayfish as for potage Bisque. This done, remove the tails, and reserve a dozen fine carapaces. Finely pound the remainder, together with the mirepoix in which the crayfish have cooked, and add thereto one-half oz. of butter, one oz. of red butter (No. 142), one-quarter pint of cold fish velouté, and six tablespoonfuls of melted fish jelly. Rub through tammy, and put the resulting purée in a sauce- pan; stir it over ice for two or three minutes; add three-quarters pint of half-beaten cream, and the crayfish tails cut into dice or finely sliced. Before beginning to prepare the mousse, line the bottom and side of a Charlotte-mould with paper, that the mousse may be moulded as soon as ready. Pour the preparation into the mould, taking care to reserve enough for the twelve carapaces already put aside, and put the mousse on ice or in a refrigerator until dishing it. Fill the twelve trimmed carapaces with the reserved mousse, and decorate each with a round slice of truffle. When about to serve, turn out the mousse on a small, round cushion of semolina or rice, one-half inch thick, lying on a dish. Remove all the paper, and decorate the top of the mousse with a crown of fine slices of truffle dipped in melted jelly, that they may be glossy. Surround the semolina or rice cushion with a border of chopped jelly, and arrange the garnished carapaces upon this jelly, setting them almost upright. N.B.—(1) Instead of being served on a cushion, the crayfish mousse may be sent to the table in a deep silver dish with a border of chopped jelly, and surrounded by the garnished carapaces. The utensil is then laid on a flat dish in a bed of broken ice, or it is incrusted direct in a block of carved ice. (2) For the moulding of crayfish mousse, the mould may be ‘““clothed”’ with fish jelly and decorated with slices of truffle, as directed under ‘‘ Mousse de Homard moulée”’ (No. 957). A mousse prepared in this way may be either dished on a semolina or rice cushion, or in a deep silver entrée dish, as described above. 332 GUIDE TO MODERN COOKERY 976a—SUPREMES D’ECREVISSES AU CHAMPAGNE Select forty medium-sized crayfish that seem full of life; cook them quickly in a highly-seasoned mirepoix, moistened with one half-bottle of dry champagne. This done, shell them; trim their tails, and keep them in the cool in a small bowl. Pound their shells as finely as possible with one-quarter Ib. of fresh butter, and put the resulting purée in a saucepan, together with one-half pint of boiling velouté containing four or five leaves of gelatine, and the cooking-liquor of the cray- fish passed through a fine strainer. Set to boil for a few minutes, that the remains may exude all their flavour; rub through tammy over a basin lying on ice, and whisk the preparation in order to accelerate its cool- ‘ing. As soon as it begins to thicken, add one pint of half- whipped cream to it. Then pour the whole into a silver or porcelain timbale, taking care that the utensil be not more than three-quarters full. When the mousse has set, decorate the surface with the reserved crayfish tails, to which are added, as a finish, bits of truffle and chervil leaves. Cover the decoration with a thin coating of easily-melting and amber-coloured fish jelly, and put the timbale on ice. When about to serve, incrust it in a block of carved ice, or place it on a silver dish with broken ice all round. 977—MOUSSE D’ECREVISSES

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.