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Whiting Forcemeat, Boudins Of
Prepare some whiting forcemeat according to the instructions already given. Roll out the forcemeat on the table in the form of oval cutlets two inches and a half long, one inch and a half wide, and one and three-quarters of an inch thick. Lay these on strips of oiled paper three-quarters of an inch larger than the cutlets. Make a hollow in the centre of each boudin the size of a farthing, and three-quarters of an inch deep. Three-parts fill this with shrimps, mussels, or oysters, cut into small dice and mixed in some very stiffly-reduced allemande sauce. Cover the sauce entirely with forcemeat. A quarter of an hour before the boudins are to be served, drop them carefully into some hot but not boiling water slightly salted, and simmer gently till the forcemeat is set. Drain them, dish them in a circle on a hot dish, pour over them some allemande or ravigote sauce, and serve. By way of variety, instead of poaching the boudins, brush them over with egg, roll them in bread-crumbs, and broil over a clear but not too fierce fire. Dish them in a circle, and serve with clear gravy flavoured with lemon-juice.
A Victorian quenelle exercise: a fish mousseline shaped by hand, stuffed with shellfish bound in a stiff sauce, and gently poached. The hinge is the water temperature — it must never move above a bare tremble or the forcemeat will swell, crack and leak its filling.
- Poaching heat"Hot but not boiling" is usually taken to mean water at around 165-175F (75-80C), the surface barely shivering. At a simmer the forcemeat can expand too fast, split, and let the sauce inside escape.
- Whiting forcemeatThe cross-referenced mixture is a pounded fish farce — raw white fish worked to a paste with a panada, butter, egg and seasoning; the proportions are in the entry this recipe refers back to. A food processor does the pounding in a minute; keep the mixture and the bowl cold throughout or it will break.
- If you cannot get whitingEuropean whiting is uncommon outside Britain and northern Europe. Haddock, pollock, hake or cod all make an equivalent forcemeat; avoid oily fish, which overwhelms the shellfish.
- Allemande sauceA velouté (light stock thickened with white roux) finished with egg yolks, cream and lemon. "Very stiffly-reduced" here means reduced almost to a paste so the diced shellfish holds together as a plug rather than running out. Ravigote, offered as the alternative sauce, is the warm version: velouté or a butter sauce sharpened with vinegar, shallot and herbs.
- The farthingA pre-decimal farthing measured about three-quarters of an inch across, so the hollow is roughly 20mm wide and 20mm deep — a thumb-tip's worth of filling.
- The stated dimensionsTwo and a half inches long by one and a half wide but one and three-quarter inches thick describes an object taller than it is broad, which is not the usual cutlet shape; note, though, that the hollow is to be three-quarters of an inch deep, which needs the greater thickness. Shape them as ovals about the size of a large egg.
- Oiled paperParchment brushed with a neutral oil, cut three-quarters of an inch larger than the cutlet so you can lift each boudin without deforming it. The recipe does not say what becomes of the paper; in practice the boudin can go into the water on its paper and the paper lifted away once the surface has set.
- The shellfishCut cooked shrimp, mussels or shucked oysters into small dice and fold them into the cold reduced sauce. They finish cooking during the poach, so raw oysters need nothing more; overcooked ones turn to rubber inside the forcemeat.
- Timing and yieldThe recipe allows a quarter of an hour from dropping them in to serving; they are done when firm to the fingertip all through. The broiled variation wants moderate heat, as the recipe's 'clear but not too fierce fire' indicates. Yield depends on how much forcemeat you make.
Boudin in French cookery originally means a sausage or pudding, and by the nineteenth century the term had been borrowed from the charcutier for these delicate poached quenelles of white fish or poultry — a boudin blanc without a casing. Whiting was an obvious carrier: cheap, abundant on British and French coasts, mild and very low in fat, which made it a standard fish for pounded farces long before mechanical grinders existed. The recipe assumes a reader who has already worked through the entries it refers back to — it is really a lesson in three techniques at once: making a forcemeat, reducing a sauce until it will behave as a solid, and poaching below the boil. The instruction to lay the shapes on oiled paper is a reminder of what kitchen life was like before non-stick anything: greased paper was the all-purpose release surface, used for cake tins, braises and, as here, for moving fragile raw mixtures into hot liquid without breaking them.