A vol-au-vent whose title garnish is four rooster combs, blanched and peeled of their skin.
دو A few quenelles of Veal or Chicken.
Stir this over the fire until hot, but not boiling; fill in yourvol-au-vent, which should only be done on sending it to table, as it makes the paste damp, and does not appear so satisfactory when filled long before serving; put a lid of pastry on the top and serve.
High-Class Cookery Recipes, 1906. Public domain; transcription unaltered.
Perfectly safe and once genuinely prized. Cockscomb is gelatinous and mild, the skinning is fiddly rather than difficult, and this was the sort of thing that marked a good kitchen.
The technique is still worth reading. The filling must be hot and never boiling, or the sauce splits and the quenelles toughen, and the case is filled as it goes to the table or the pastry goes soft.
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Read the original page →Francatelli's invalid broth: two or three garden snails, “the hind-quarters only of two dozen stream-frogs previously skinned,” bruised together and simmered with turnip and saffron.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Boil a pound of butter, add “four common green frogs,” cook until dry, stir in alum. For canker of the mouth, throat or stomach. Said to be infallible.
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
“Put ten pounds of snails in a covered barrel and keep for ten days.” Then salt, vinegar, and stirring “until a foam rises.” All of it alive.
Bohemian San Francisco · 1914