Escalopes de Foie Gras à la Ravignan

Escalopes de Foie Gras à la Ravignan (foie gras and truffle parcels in brioche) teaches the discipline of enclosure. The one true thing to know before you touch a pan, or rather the baking sheet, is this: the seal is the dish. Press it carelessly and the foie gras renders into the oven; press it cleanly and that fat bathes the truffle and forcemeat inside a bronzed shell.

The old formula assumed unsweetened brioche paste rolled by a pâtissier, chicken forcemeat kept ice-cold by the garde-manger, a saucier with Périgueux sauce ready from stock never off the fire, and a hot service oven. It needed no salamander. Your home equivalent is prepared brioche dough, cold forcemeat and foie gras, a heavy sheet preheated with the oven, and finished sauce warmed gently while the parcels bake. Ten portions become four because this is a home table; the separate hands and holding pots were brigade scaffolding and can go. The truffle-foie-truffle layering, bare margin, dampened seal, gilding, and hot bake stay because they are the dish. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Work cold and resist the urge to heap on more filling. The step that matters most is the seal: preserve the full one-third-inch margin, keep it free of fat and forcemeat, moisten it lightly, then press it firmly with the blunt back of the cutter.