Farce de Merlan

This is an ingredient list rather than a full method — the book assumes a cook who already knows how a panada-based fish forcemeat is built. What follows fills in the assumptions behind the four lines.

• What a farce isFarce is forcemeat: pounded raw fish bound with a cooked flour-and-butter paste, used to stuff other fish, to line a mould, or to be shaped into quenelles. It is a component, not a finished dish, which is why no serving instruction is given.
• The gillOne gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, five fluid ounces, about 150 ml. In American books of the same period a gill is half a cup, four fluid ounces — either amount will work here, as the panada is meant to be very stiff.
• The missing stepButter, flour and stock in these proportions make a panada: melt the butter, stir in the flour, add the stock and cook it, stirring hard, until it leaves the sides of the pan in a smooth ball. It must be cooled completely before the fish goes in or the mixture will slacken and refuse to hold.
• The fishSkin and bone the whiting raw, pound the flesh to a paste, then work in the cold panada and pass the whole through a fine sieve; a food processor will do the pounding, but the sieving is still worth doing to catch sinew. One large whiting yields roughly 8–10 oz of trimmed flesh; pollock, haddock or cod are the closest substitutes if whiting is unavailable.
• What the list leaves outNo seasoning, no eggs. Recipes of this kind commonly call for salt, white pepper or cayenne and a scrape of nutmeg, with one or two egg yolks (or a whole egg) beaten in for binding, and sometimes a little cream to lighten. Season assertively; cold forcemeat tastes flat.
• Testing before you commitPoach a teaspoonful in barely trembling salted water for a couple of minutes and taste it. This tells you whether the mixture needs more egg to hold or more liquid to soften, and it is the most reliable check before the whole batch is shaped.
• Cooking quenellesWater at a bare shiver, never a boil — a rolling boil breaks the surface of the quenelles and they disintegrate. Three to five minutes for small spoon-shaped ones, until they float and feel springy.
• YieldAbout a pound of forcemeat: enough to stuff a medium sole or a pair of whiting, or to make roughly twenty small quenelles as a garnish for four.