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Quenelles of Grouse
1 cup meat minced fine 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley 1/2 an anchovy 2 tablespoons butter 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/2 clove garlic 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice Bone the anchovy and chop and pound with meat and bread crumbs. Add the other ingredients and mix all together carefully, cool and shape in balls the size of a small egg. These may be poached and served with Bechamel Sauce or fried and served with any good Brown or Mushroom Sauce.
A straightforward forcemeat dumpling that reads as a way to use up the last of a roast game bird. The proportions are sound; only the handling needs a modern gloss.
- The meatGrouse is not sold in most markets; a cup of finely minced dark poultry works the same way — pheasant, duck breast, or the leg meat from a roast chicken. The recipe does not say whether the meat is cooked or raw, and quenelle forcemeats of the period were often made from raw flesh; if you start from raw, poach the quenelles a full 10-12 minutes and check they reach 165F.
- Pound, then chillThe pounding is what makes a quenelle rather than a meatball — the paste must be smooth enough to hold together without flour or extra egg. A food processor does it in seconds. The instruction to "cool" before shaping is the hinge: a warm forcemeat slumps and breaks up in the poaching liquid, so refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
- The anchovyHalf a salt-packed or oil-packed fillet, boned as directed. It is there for depth, not for fish flavour, and modern anchovies in oil are already boneless. Cut back on the salt slightly if using salt-packed.
- ButterTwo tablespoons should be softened, not melted, so it emulsifies into the paste. Melted butter separates out during poaching.
- PoachingBarely simmering salted water or light stock, never a rolling boil, which tears them apart. Balls the size of a small egg need roughly 8-10 minutes and will float and firm up when done.
- FryingRoll the chilled balls in flour before frying or the surface sticks and shreds. Medium heat in clarified butter or oil, turning to brown all sides.
- Test one firstThe book gives no binder adjustment. Poach a single quenelle before committing the batch; if it disintegrates, work in another spoonful of crumbs, and if it is dense and dry, a spoonful of cream.
- YieldAbout 8 to 10 quenelles — an entrée course for four, or a first course for six with plenty of sauce.
Quenelle comes from the French kitchen, and by the nineteenth century it meant a pounded forcemeat, usually of veal, pike or poultry, shaped and poached, then draped in a sauce. Escoffier's generation treated it as a test of technique, and it survives in American cookbooks like this one as a genteel and thoroughly practical way to stretch the remains of game.