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Panada, Bread
Slice the crumb of two French rolls into a basin, and pour over it as much boiling gravy as it will absorb. When quite moist, beat it well with a fork, add whatever seasoning is required, put the bread into a saucepan with an ounce of butter, and stir it over a gentle fire until it is dry and smooth, and leaves the saucepan with the spoon. When cool, it is ready for use. Time, about half an hour to soak the bread. Probable cost, 6d.
This is not a dish in itself but a binder — the stiff bread paste that holds forcemeats, quenelles and stuffings together. A few of its terms need translating.
- The hinge: cook it until it leaves the panThe paste must be stirred over low heat until it forms a single mass that pulls cleanly away from the sides and clings to the spoon, exactly as choux paste does. A wet panada will slacken a forcemeat and the quenelles will fall apart in the poaching liquid.
- French rollsA Victorian French roll was a small soft white roll, closer to a modern dinner roll than to a baguette. Two of them yield a few ounces of loosely packed crumb once the crust is cut away — use a plain white loaf if rolls are not to hand, and discard all crust.
- "Crumb" means the interiorIn this book crumb is the soft inside of the loaf as opposed to the crust, not dried breadcrumbs. Dry crumbs will not swell and absorb the way fresh crumb does.
- Boiling gravyHere gravy means clear meat stock or the strained pan juices of a roast, not thickened brown sauce. For a fish or chicken forcemeat use a light stock; milk can be substituted for the liquid in the same quantity, and milk panadas are common in modern kitchens.
- An ounce of butterThat is 2 tablespoons. Stir it in over the lowest workable heat; the mixture scorches easily once it begins to dry.
- Soaking timeThe recipe allows about half an hour; with fresh crumb and boiling liquid the bread may be uniformly moist sooner. Judge by feel: no dry pockets and no free liquid left in the basin.
- Cool it before useA warm panada will melt the fat in whatever meat or fish you pound it with, and the forcemeat will be greasy. Spread it on a plate, cover, and chill it before combining.
Panada comes through Italian and Spanish from Latin panis, bread, and the word has covered two related things for centuries: a thin invalid gruel of bread boiled in water or broth, and the stiff bread paste used in professional kitchens to bind forcemeats. This entry is the second kind — one of the foundation preparations a cook was expected to have on hand before attempting quenelles, croquettes or a raised pie. Its presence in a household cookery dictionary shows how far French kitchen grammar had travelled into English middle-class cooking: the pounded forcemeat, once the mark of a trained chef de cuisine, is here reduced to two rolls, a ladle of gravy and an ounce of butter. Bread panada is still taught, usually made with milk, and remains a standard binder for fish quenelles and for the lighter kinds of sausage and terrine.