Mousse Froide de Jambon

Mousse Froide de Jambon (cold ham mousse) teaches temperature before it teaches anything else. Lean ham, cold Velouté, fluid aspic, and crème à demi-fouettée (half-beaten cream) must meet while the purée is cold and the aspic is still loose. Let either condition slip and the mousse turns grainy or sets in the bowl instead of the mould. When it is right, the slice is pale rose, close and silky, light enough to yield under a fork yet firm enough to stand.

The original kitchen assumed a saucier on staff, a stockpot never off the fire, finished Velouté and clarified aspic waiting in the cold room, and enough hands to pound a pound of ham through a sieve. A salamander has no work in this cold dish. At home, a processor takes over the pounding, a fine sieve keeps the essential refinement, and a one-litre mould or four cassolettes, small straight-sided dishes, replace the banquet mould. The batch is reduced to 340 grams of ham for four, with the Velouté, aspic, and cream reduced by the same factor. The size changed; the grammar did not. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The elaborate truffle decoration is brigade scaffolding and may go. Sieving the ham, working it over ice, adding the aspic little by little, and folding in cream only half-beaten are the dish and must stay. The one step that matters most is the aspic: cool enough not to melt the cream, fluid enough not to seize. If it threads into jelly, don't panic. Ça se rattrape, and the method catches it before the mould.