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Two Eggs (About a quarter of a gill)
About a quarter of a gill of Cream.
Salt. Mix one ounce of butter and two ounces of flour together in a stewpan, add one gill of stock, and cook these well together until quite thick and the mixture or panada leaves the sides of the stewpan quite clean, then put it on a plate to cool. Cut up the veal into small pieces, removing all the fat and skin, pound it in a mortar with the panada, put half of it into the mortar with one egg (raw) and pound it to a cream, then half the veal, pepper and salt, and pound these well together; now add the rest of the panada, the veal, pepper and salt, the other egg, the cream, and again pound all well together and rub through a wire-sieve; put this quenelle mixture into a basin.
Butter a sauté - pan, shape the mixture into quenelles with two dessertspoons and a knife, thus: dip a dessertspoon into hot water, fill it with the mixture, shape it oval with a knife dipped in hot water; take another dessertspoon, dip it in hot water, scoop the mixture from the first spoon into the second and place it carefully into the sauté-pan, and so on; arrange the quenelles in the sauté-pan, pour boiling water carefully into it, and poach them for ten minutes. Turn the quenelles carefully with a spoon, and when thoroughly cooked lift them out of the water, drain them on a clean cloth, arrange them tastily in a circle on a hot dish, pour white sauce over them, filling in the centre of the dish with button mushrooms cooked in stock, or peas, or spinach.
Ris de Veau à l'Italienne.
Ingredients.
One heart Sweetbread.
A classic veal quenelle: a flour-and-butter panada pounded with raw veal, eggs and cream, then poached and sauced. The technique survives intact in modern forcemeat work, though the mortar has been superseded.
- The measuresA gill is 5 fl oz (a scant two-thirds of a US cup), so a quarter gill of cream is about 2 1/2 tablespoons, and the stock for the panada is a scant two-thirds of a cup. The weight of veal is not stated in the surviving text; something in the region of 12 oz of lean veal would suit this quantity of panada and two eggs.
- Cook the panada properlyThis is the hinge. The roux-and-stock paste must be worked over heat until it pulls away from the pan in one mass and leaves the sides clean, or the quenelles will slacken and break up in the poaching water.
- Everything coldCool the panada thoroughly and keep the veal, eggs and cream chilled. A warm forcemeat separates when pounded and again when poached.
- Mortar or processorA food processor does the pounding in a fraction of the time, but work in short pulses and stop as soon as the mixture is smooth. Overworking warms it. The sieving step is still worth doing for texture, though a fine drum sieve or a tamis is easier than a wire sieve.
- Poaching liquidDespite the word boiling, the water in the sauté-pan should be barely trembling once the quenelles are in, around 175-180F. A true boil will blow them apart. Ten minutes suits quenelles shaped with dessertspoons; they are done when firm to the touch and floating.
- Test one firstPoach a single small quenelle before shaping the rest. If it collapses, beat in a little more panada; if it is rubbery and dense, loosen with a spoonful more cream.
- YieldDepending on how much veal is used, two eggs' worth of forcemeat should give somewhere around sixteen to eighteen dessertspoon quenelles, enough for about four as an entree with white sauce and the mushroom, pea or spinach garnish.
Quenelles de veau were a fixture of the late-Victorian and Edwardian professional kitchen, where an entrée was expected to look composed rather than merely cooked -- hence the instruction to arrange them in a circle and fill the centre with a contrasting garnish. The name comes from the French quenelle, generally traced to the German Knödel, dumpling, and the shaping method described here, passing the mixture between two wetted spoons, is still taught under that name. The panada -- a cooked flour-and-liquid paste -- is what binds the pounded meat and keeps it tender, and cooks of this period distinguished carefully between bread, flour and rice panadas for different forcemeats. Veal was the standard choice because its mild flavour and pale colour suited the white sauce that finished the dish.