Aspic de Foie Gras

Aspic de foie gras (foie gras set in clear jelly) teaches the governing principle of the cold kitchen: cold is an ingredient. Each layer must become firm enough to carry the next while remaining slightly tacky enough to bind with it. Rush that setting, or pour the jelly while it is warm, and the foie gras floats, the decoration wanders, and the finished aspic slumps.

The original preparation assumed a saucier with limpid stock never off the fire, a garde-manger working over broken ice, an ornate tube mould, and several pairs of hands. The salamander has no work in this cold preparation. Your equivalent is a finished clear aspic jelly, a four-cup ring mould, crushed ice in a roasting tin, and one clear refrigerator shelf. The brigade-sized mould and elaborate repeated motifs are scaffolding and can go; clothing the mould, fixing the decoration with drops of jelly, and setting every row under its own coat are the dish itself and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Use the rectangles permitted by the original rather than shaping shells with a hot spoon. They make a regular pattern with less handling, an honest change of scale rather than technique. The one step that decides everything is simple: let every layer set firm before the next one touches it.