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Chicken Quenelles
Mix together one teacupful each of breadcrumbs and finely-pounded cooked chicken; season highly with salt and cayenne, and moisten with raw egg yolks to bind it. Mould into little, olive-shaped pieces between two spoons; then either roll the quenelles in egg and cracker dust and fry them, or poach them until they float in boiling broth or water, and use them as desired.
A garnish rather than a dish: forcemeat dumplings for dropping into clear soup, or for frying as a small entrée. The proportions here are loose by design, so the working method matters more than the numbers.
- Teacupful"Teacupful" was not a standardised measure; period sources put it anywhere from about half a cup to a full cup, so treat it as an approximation rather than a fixed figure. Equal volumes of crumbs and pounded chicken is the point; err toward slightly more chicken than crumbs for a better texture.
- Finely-pounded chickenThe original means a mortar, worked until the meat is a smooth paste with no fibres. A food processor does this in under a minute; pulse rather than run it, and scrape down the sides so nothing stays stringy.
- Egg yolksExpect two to three yolks for this quantity. Add them one at a time — the mixture should hold a shape on the spoon and not slump. Too much yolk and the quenelles dissolve in the poaching water.
- Test one firstThe hinge of the recipe. Poach a single quenelle before shaping the rest. If it breaks up, work in more crumbs; if it is dense and rubbery, add a spoonful of cream or broth.
- Poach, do not boilDespite the wording, the liquid should be at a bare shiver, around 180F. A rolling boil tears the quenelles apart. They rise to the surface in three to five minutes and are done a moment after that.
- Cracker dustFinely crushed soda crackers or saltines, sieved. Panko is too coarse for something this small; fine dry breadcrumbs are the closer substitute.
- Frying350F to 365F in neutral oil, a minute or two until golden. The chicken is already cooked, but the raw yolk binding the mixture is not, so make sure the quenelles are heated through and not merely browned outside.
- Season with restraintSeason the raw mixture, then taste the test quenelle before committing.
- YieldAbout twenty olive-sized quenelles, enough to garnish six bowls of soup or serve four as a fried hot appetiser.
Quenelles came into American hotel kitchens from the French repertoire, where quenelle denotes a bound forcemeat poached in liquid — traditionally of pike, veal, or chicken, and shaped between two spoons into the tapered oval that still bears the name in professional kitchens. This version is a shortcut against the grand method: no panade cooked out on the stove, no sieving through a tammy cloth, just cooked chicken pounded down with breadcrumbs and bound with yolks. That the recipe ends "use them as desired" suggests quenelles were made to be dropped into whatever soup was going out.