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Lobster Quenelles
Pick the meat from a freshly-boiled hen lobster. Pound the flesh of the claws, the coral, and the spawn in a mortar with a quarter of a pound of butter, the flesh of a large whiting, and six ounces of panada (see PANADA). Add the yolks of four eggs and the whites of two, and season with a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, a pinch of salt, a grain of cayenne, and the eighth of a nutmeg, grated. When thoroughly pounded, form the forcemeat into the shape of the bowl of a spoon. The quenelles may be either fried in hot butter, and served with lobster sauce as an entree, or be used for garnish, etc. Time, ten minutes to fry. Probable cost of lobster, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A Victorian fish forcemeat that depends entirely on the panada and the pounding: get the paste smooth and stiff enough to hold its shape and the rest is straightforward.
- Panada firstCassell's cross-reference means a thick paste of breadcrumbs or flour cooked in milk or stock with butter until it leaves the sides of the pan, then cooled. Six ounces is about 170 g, and it must be cold and firm before it goes into the mortar or the quenelles will slacken and fall apart in the fat.
- The mortarA food processor does the pounding in a minute or two. Work the whiting and butter to a paste first, then add the panada, then the lobster and eggs, pulsing so the meat is not reduced to complete smoothness. Chill the mixture for an hour before shaping.
- Berried hensThe recipe wants a hen for her coral and spawn. Landing an egg-bearing (berried) lobster is prohibited in UK fisheries and in a number of US lobster states, so external spawn is not something you can readily buy. The coral, the roe inside the body, dark green raw and turning red on cooking, is present in mature hens and is what gives the mixture its colour; a fishmonger may be able to pick one out for you.
- WhitingA lean white fish with little flavour of its own, forming the body of the forcemeat. Pollock, haddock, hake or cod fillet does the same job; the recipe specifies only 'a large whiting' and gives no lobster weight, so match one good fillet of skinned, boned flesh to one lobster.
- Anchovy sauceNot modern bottled fish sauce but a Victorian anchovy condiment, either a bottled anchovy essence or a made sauce of pounded anchovy with butter. A teaspoon of anchovy paste, or two mashed salted anchovy fillets, gives roughly the equivalent savour.
- Shaping'The shape of the bowl of a spoon' is an oval, formed by passing the mixture between two dessertspoons dipped in hot water; the modern three-sided quenelle is the same trick. Poach a single test quenelle in barely simmering salted water for two minutes: if it breaks up, beat in a little more panada; if it is heavy, loosen with a spoonful of cream.
- Frying timeTen minutes in butter is generous for something this size and will brown the exterior hard before the centre is set. Five to six minutes over moderate heat, turning once, is enough for spoon-sized quenelles; alternatively poach them and finish briefly in foaming butter.
- YieldThree or four as a first course, or a dozen or more small quenelles if you are using them as garnish for a fish soup or a turbot.
Quenelles came into English cookery from the French kitchen in the nineteenth century, and the technique is older still: a pounded forcemeat of white fish or veal lightened with panada and eggs, shaped between two spoons and poached. They were a mark of a serious kitchen, since the mortar work was long and the paste unforgiving. The insistence on a hen reflects a cook's interest in the coral, prized both as a seasoning and as a way of giving a fish forcemeat colour.