Bécasses et Bécassines Froides

Bécasses et Bécassines Froides (cold woodcocks and snipes) teach the governing rule of every masked cold dish: the bird must be thoroughly cold and perfectly dry before the first coating touches it. Damp skin makes sauce chaud-froid, a warm-made sauce served cold, slide away in sheets. Temperature and patience do the work here.

The entry gives no independent formula. It sends these birds directly to the cold pheasant and partridge preparations, assuming a saucier with finished sauces at hand, a stockpot never off the fire, and a garde-manger, the cold station, setting one tray while another is coated. For four servings, one aromatic cooking liquor now performs three jobs: it poaches the game, builds the sauce chaud-froid, and becomes the clear aspic. Powdered gelatin supplies the dependable set that a home stock cannot always provide. Separate brigade pots are scaffolding and go; poaching the birds, cooling them in their liquor, and setting every thin layer before the next are the dish and must stay.

When finished, each little bird sits beneath ivory sauce and crystal-clear aspic, with the dark game flavor held inside rather than buried. This is one cook, one stove, one evening's work, followed by an honest rest in the refrigerator. Before you begin, clear space for a rack and shallow chilling tray. The first coat will tell the truth about every preparation that came before it.