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Quenelles, Moulding Of
Take a spoon of the size it is wished the quenelles should be, fill it with the forcemeat, and smooth the surface with a knife which has been dipped in hot water. Dip another spoon of the same size into hot water, and with it slip the meat out of the first spoon, put it into a buttered dish, and proceed with another quenelle. When as many are made as are required, slip the quenelles from the dish into a saucepan of lightly salted water, and let them boil until firm.
This is a method rather than a formula — the forcemeat is assumed to be made already, and what follows is the shaping and poaching of it. Two things in the original need adjusting: the word "boil" and the absence of any timing.
- Never let the water boilA rolling boil tears quenelles apart and makes them coarse and spongy. Bring the salted water to the boil, then drop it back to a bare shiver — around 170–180F, with no more than an occasional bubble — before the quenelles go in. This is the hinge of the whole operation.
- "Until firm" in minutesAs a rough guide, spoon-shaped quenelles of about a tablespoon need something like 8-10 minutes, and larger dessertspoon or serving-spoon sizes rather longer. Go by the signs rather than the clock: they are done when they have swelled slightly, roll over of their own accord, and feel springy rather than soft at the centre.
- Poach one firstBefore shaping the whole batch, drop a teaspoon of the forcemeat into the water and taste it. That test tells you whether the mixture needs more seasoning, more egg to bind, or more cream to lighten — corrections that are impossible once fifty quenelles are sitting on a buttered dish.
- Chill the forcemeatCold forcemeat holds a shape; forcemeat that has warmed in the handling slumps and smears. Keep the bowl over ice or return it to the refrigerator between batches, and rinse the spoons in hot water each time as directed — the film of hot water is what releases the paste cleanly.
- The two-spoon methodWorked between two hot wetted spoons, this gives the smooth, olive-shaped quenelle. Modern kitchens more often use two wet dessertspoons passed back and forth, or simply pipe the mixture through a plain nozzle and cut it into lengths; the poaching is identical either way.
- Salted water or stockLightly salted water is the neutral option and is what the book specifies. Poaching instead in a light fish or chicken stock, matched to the forcemeat, gives more flavour and leaves you a poaching liquor to build the accompanying sauce on.
- Yield and servingA pound of forcemeat gives roughly 20–24 tablespoon-sized quenelles, enough for six as a garnish or four as a course. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto a cloth to drain, then sauce them at once — they stiffen and dry if held long.
Quenelle is usually traced to the Alsatian German Knödel, a dumpling, though the etymology is generally offered with some caution; the dish sits at the point where German dumpling-making met French kitchen refinement: a pounded forcemeat of veal, fish or poultry, lightened with panada and cream, then poached rather than fried or baked. By the late nineteenth century, when Cassell's was compiling its dictionary, quenelles were a standard item of professional garnishing — the small ones dropped into clear soups, the larger ones served as an entrée under a velouté or in a vol-au-vent. Shaping was the skill, and the book treats the two-spoon trick as a piece of basic craft to be learned once and applied to any forcemeat.